The US Open after the Australian one. Jannik Sinner confirms with facts, winning the second Slam of his career, the status of world number one, and definitively enters the history of Italian sport. No one like him, so in his first final of the great American tournament, in New York, he beats 6-3 6-4 7-5 the home tennis player Taylor Fritz, who cannot do much against the shots of the Alto Adige player, who had the match in hand from the first bars. The only moment of balance in the match was when, in the first set, Fritz found himself 0-2 down but was able to go up to 3-2. But then Jannik took off again, winning the first set 6-3 with 60% of first serves on serve, obtaining 67% of points. 60% instead the yield with the second. Numbers that make it clear who was the best, strong enough to leave behind even certain recent events. So in the end, despite the shouts of “USA, USA” from the Flushing Meadow crowd, almost all in favor of the player who brought an American back to the final in NY after 18 years, it was Italy who celebrated and Sinner put the sixth trophy in the cabinet of this fairytale 2024. The US Open comes after the Australian Open, Rotterdam, Miami, Halle and Cincinnati, and Jannik’s tally is 55 victories. (including 23 Slam wins) total against 5 defeats. That’s not all, because including Cincinnati he has reached 11 consecutive wins, conceding only two sets to the opponents he met (the very first against McDonald, and one against Medvedev). It’s difficult to do better than that.
His great result in New York also takes us back 50 years, because in 2024 it happened, as in 1974, that the four Grand Slam tournaments were all won by tennis players under 23: 2 Sinner (Australian Open and US Open) and two by 21-year-old Carlos Alcaraz (Paris and Wimbledon). In 1974 Jimmy Connors, who turned 22 during those months, won 3 (Melbourne, Wimbledon and New York) and 18-year-old Bjorn Borg, in Paris. Fritz consoles himself with the realization that he, who was outside the Top Ten of the ATP ranking, still reached the first final of his career in a Slam tournament, even if he will have the regret that this time his often lethal serve did not give him ‘easy’ points. He also has the satisfaction of having played, during the tournament, bits of highly spectacular tennis, which allowed him to defeat rivals of the caliber of Ruud, Tiafoe and Zverev. Returning to today’s final, in the second set the two contenders always held serve until the tenth game, when Sinner had two break points at his disposal and immediately capitalized on the first with a backhand down the line: 6-4. The third set was more fought, when Fritz went ahead at 5-3 but then Sinner didn’t make any more mistakes, playing fantastic tennis, like the true number one he is, and winning four games in a row that crowned him king of New York. Six finals played in 2024 and six victories, Jannik (the first Italian male tennis player to win the US Open) is also this, and he promises to continue.
The hug with his staff, Simone Vagnozzi And Darren Cahill above all and the shy kiss to his girlfriend, the tennis player Anna Kalinskaya: An emotional Jannik Sinner walked through the stands at the Arthur Ashe to celebrate his US Open victory with his team after a difficult few weeks following the Clostebol affair.