Six months after a billionth of a gram of clostebol was found in a urine sample from Jannik Sinner and 19 days after he was publicly cleared of doping, Jannik Sinner won his second Grand Slam title.
It’s a victory that exists somewhere in the netherworld between a bad tennis look and a triumph of mental toughness. Whichever way you look at it, the 23-year-old’s routine 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 victory over American hope Taylor Fritz earned him a second Grand Slam title, in addition to January’s Australian Open.
Together, Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have won all four Grand Slams this year. As the last vestiges of the Big Three era fade, 2024 marks the beginning of the next great tennis dynasty.
Fritz will be one of the players who will try to prevent the two from dividing the world between them for the next decade. But in his first Grand Slam final, it never looked like he would be able to stop Sinner here.
Throughout the two weeks in Flushing Meadows, there was a sense of American anticipation that rose like the steam from the streets of New York. A sense that the 21-year wait for a home men’s singles champion might soon be over.
Jannik Sinner claimed victory at the US Open by beating Taylor Fritz in three sets
Sinner fully deserved this title, because it was another reminder of his qualities
Sinner won 6-3 6-4 6-5, because he outsmarted Fritz
Fritz had hoped to end America’s long wait for a home men’s singles champion
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 American, and since then, none. In a reverse Age of Discovery, the sport’s power base has moved across the Atlantic and settled in Europe.
The last American victory here is so far away that the nightclub where Roddick celebrated his title in 2003 is now a ceramics shop.
So there was a lot of history resting on the broad shoulders of the 26-year-old Fritz. And as if that wasn’t enough pressure for the number 12, there was also the American equivalent of a royal presence watching: his namesake Taylor Swift with her NFL boyfriend Travis Kelce.
Perhaps all this was a factor, as Fritz came out cold in the biggest match of his life, landing just 38 percent of his first serves in the opening set. His best shot, besides the serve, is the forehand, but he missed too many presentable mid-court shots, making 19 unforced errors and hitting just 10 winners on that wing.
His first serve percentage shot up to 78 in the second set, but his serve was rubbish and he held the score until 4-5.
Fritz improved his level considerably in the third set and played a brilliant game, good for a 4-3 score, partly thanks to a double fault from Sinner.
But Fritz was broken back and at 5-6 he made a terrible mess of a forehand drive volley to give Sinner two championship points. Another forehand error was an unfortunately fitting way to hand the title to Sinner.
He has been a big favorite since mid-weekend, but that was not the case at the starting post. His draw looked terrible: Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals, Alcaraz in the semifinals and Novak Djokovic in the final. When the latter two were defeated in the third round, he became the man to beat.
Sinner has looked like a different player these two weeks and this success will mean so much to him
The depth and accuracy of Sinner’s playing proved too much for Fritz to handle
And then there was the revelation of his failed tests and acquittal, which was revealed a few days before the draw. The general opinion was that all the commotion would prove too much to handle, but in my opinion this was always a misreading of the situation.
We may not have known about this case until last month, but Sinner certainly did. Since Miami, where he registered those two positive tests, he has been at risk of a suspension.
Now that he has been cleared, everything is out in the open. It must have felt like lifting a heavy burden and it should come as no surprise that, after his struggles halfway through the year since that failed test, he has become a different player in these two weeks.
And what a player he is. His great modern rival Alcaraz has more variety and is more exciting to watch, but Sinner is the purest striker of a ball on the planet.
Sinner’s intriguing battle with Carlos Alcaraz heralds new era of tennis
If you are ever lucky enough to see him live, try to watch a few points with your eyes closed. You will always be able to tell which shots are Sinner’s by the whip-crack report they produce.
His depth and accuracy were too much for Fritz to handle. Like his Australian counterpart and US Open champion Aryna Sabalenka, he is working on adding more variety to his game and it was the drop shot that produced two crucial breaks of serve in this match: at 3-3 in the first and 5-4 when Fritz was serving for the third set.
Sinner had more than earned this title and was, in the eyes of the authorities, completely innocent of the doping allegations against him.
We can only praise him for the exceptional two weeks he has had and look forward to the Sinner/Alcaraz era that began with this victory.
