Jannik Sinner, of Italy, holds up the championship trophy after defeating Taylor Fritz, of the United States, in the men’s singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo)
Jannik Sinner started slowly at the U.S. Open, dropping the first set he played after being exonerated in a doping case no one knew about until shortly before play began at Flushing Meadows.
If that episode initially hung over him during the tournament, Sinner was able to put it aside while on court. Was he ever. The No. 1-ranked Sinner beat Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 with his typical relentless baseline game to win the men’s championship at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday, less than three weeks after word emerged of the Italian’s two positive tests for a trace amount of an anabolic steroid.
“It was, and it’s still, a little bit in my mind,” Sinner said. “It’s not that it’s gone, but when I’m on court, I try to focus (on) the game, I try to handle the situation the best possible way. … It was not easy, that’s for sure, but … I tried to stay focused, which I guess I’ve done a great job, mentally staying there every point I play.”
This 2-hour, 15-minute victory gave him a second Grand Slam trophy — the other was at the Australian Open in January — and prevented No. 12 Fritz from ending the major title drought for American men that has lasted 21 years.
Andy Roddick’s triumph at Flushing Meadows in 2003 was the last Slam title for a man from the United States. The last before Fritz, a 26-year-old from California, to even contest a final at one of the four biggest tournaments in tennis also was Roddick, who lost to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009.
“I know we’ve been waiting for a champion for a long time,” Fritz said, “so I’m sorry I couldn’t get it done this time.”
Still, this tournament was a success in many ways for U.S. tennis, with two women and two men from the country all in the semifinals for the first time at a major since the 2003 U.S. Open. Jessica Pegula reached the women’s final before losing to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
Jannik Sinner improved to 55-5 with a tour-high six titles in 2024. That includes a 35-2 mark on hard courts, the surface used at both the Australian Open and U.S. Open. He’s the first man since Guillermo Vilas in 1977 to win his first two Grand Slam trophies in the same season.
This was the first year since 2002 in which no member of the Big Three — Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal or the retired Federer — won at least one major. Instead, Sinner, who is 23, and Carlos Alcaraz, 21, split the four Slam titles.
“Nice to see new champions,” Sinner said. “Nice to see new rivalries.”
The world found out on August 20 that he tested positive twice in an eight-day span during March for a substance sold in an over-the-counter product in Italy, but he was cleared because his use was ruled unintentional — his defense was that the steroid entered his system via a massage from a team member he later fired.
While some players wondered whether Sinner was accorded special treatment, most believed he wasn’t trying to dope. And the U.S. Open’s fans never gave him a hard time.
“You can understand why people are upset about it. In anti-doping, it sounds so ridiculous,” said Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which wasn’t involved in the case. “But the science is such that, if the facts are actually proven out, it is actually plausible.”
Sinner, who dedicated this win to an aunt that is in poor health, said the months before his case was resolved were not easy.
“It was very difficult for me to enjoy in certain moments. Also how I behaved or how I walked on the court in certain tournaments before … was not the same as I used to be,” he said, “so whoever knows me better, they know that something was wrong. But during this tournament, slowly I re-started to feel a little bit more how I am as a person.”
First uploaded on: 09-09-2024 at 12:20 IST
