Six months after one-billionth of a gram of clostebol was found in a sample of his urine and 19 days after he was publicly cleared of doping, Jannik Sinner has won his second Grand Slam title.
It is a victory that sits somewhere between a bad image for tennis and a triumph of mental toughness. Whichever way you look at it, the 23-year-old’s 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 victory over American hope Taylor Fritz earned him a second Grand Slam title, to add to the Australian Open in January.
Between them, Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have won all four Grand Slams this year. With the last vestiges of the Big Three era fading, 2024 marks the dawn of tennis’ next great dynasty.
Fritz will be among the players trying to stop these two from sharing the world between themselves for the next decade but, in his first Grand Slam final, he never looked like stopping Sinner here.
Throughout the fortnight at Flushing Meadows, there has been a sense of anticipation among Americans that has been rising like the steam in the streets of New York. A feeling that the 21-year wait for a local men’s singles champion could soon be over.
Jannik Sinner claimed victory at the US Open by beating Taylor Fritz in straight sets
Sinner won 6-3 6-4 6-5, beating Fritz.
Between the start of the Open Era in 1968 and Andy Roddick’s title in 2003, more than half of the men’s title winners were Americans, and nothing since. Like an Age of Discovery in reverse, the sport’s power base has moved across the Atlantic and settled in Europe.
So long ago was the last American victory here that the nightclub where Roddick celebrated that 2003 title is now a pottery shop.
So there was plenty of history riding on the broad shoulders of the 26-year-old Fritz, and if that wasn’t enough pressure on the No. 12 seed, there was the American equivalent of a royal presence watching: his namesake Taylor Swift with her NFL boyfriend Travis Kelce.
Perhaps all of this was a factor because, in the biggest match of his life, Fritz came out cold, connecting on just 38 percent of his first serves in the first set. Along with his serve, his best shot is his forehand, but he missed too many presentable balls in the center of the court, with 19 unforced errors and just 10 winners in that zone.
Her first serve percentage soared to 78 in the second set, but she mishandled her serve to stay within 4-5.
Fritz significantly raised his level in the third set and played a brilliant match to break 4-3, helped by a double fault from Sinner.
But Fritz lost serve and at 5-6 made a terrible error on a forehand volley that gave Sinner two championship points. Another forehand error was a sadly fitting way to hand the title to Sinner.
He was the big favourite from the weekend onwards, but he was not so much in the first round. His draw looked awful: Daniil Medvedev in the quarter-finals, Alcaraz in the semi-finals and Novak Djokovic in the final. When the latter two fell in the third round, he became the man to beat.
Fritz was hoping to end America’s long wait for a homegrown men’s singles champion.
And then it came out that he had failed the tests and had been exonerated, something that came out just days before the draw. The general opinion was that all this fuss would be too much to handle, but in my opinion, that was always a misreading of the situation.
We may not have known anything about this case until last month, but Sinner certainly did. From Miami, where he recorded those two positive results, he faces the possibility of a ban.
Now that he has been exonerated, it is all out in the open. This must have been like lifting a lead weight and it should come as no surprise that, after his struggles in the middle of the year since failing the test, he has looked like a different player this fortnight.
And what a player he is. His great modern rival, Alcaraz, has more variety and is more exciting to watch, but Sinner is the best finisher on the planet.
If you’re ever lucky enough to see him live, try watching some spots with your eyes closed. You’ll always be able to tell which shots are Sinner’s by the whipping sound they make.
Her depth and precision proved too much for Fritz. Like her compatriot Aryna Sabalenka, the US Open champion is working on adding more variety to her game and it was the drop shot that produced two crucial service breaks in this match – at 3-3 in the first set and 5-4 when Fritz was serving for the third set.
Sinner fully deserved this title and, in the eyes of the authorities, was completely innocent of the doping charges brought against him.
So we can do nothing but praise him for an exceptional fortnight and look forward to the Sinner/Alcaraz era that this win has ushered in.
