State of the Season: How will Jannik Sinner fare in the final months of 2024?

What’s at Stake

A tennis player’s transition from hunter to hunted constitutes a major step in his or her status. For Jannik Sinner, that moment is about to accelerate in a major way. For it was in the fall of 2023 that Sinner laid the groundwork for the excellence that was to come in 2024. At the conclusion of last year’s US Open, Sinner was ranked seventh in the world. Then came an autumn of ascent. Sinner won Beijing and Vienna, was runner-up at the ATP Finals, and capped off the year by leading Italy to the Davis Cup title, an effort that included a victory from three match points down versus Novak Djokovic.

Between those results and a glorious ’24 – two majors and four other titles – Sinner has much to defend over the next 12 months. The good news is that he has all the skills to do it. Sinner’s groundstrokes are thundering, making a sound like nothing in all of tennis. Over the last two years, his serve has greatly improved – a profound change from the platform-based motion to the pinpoint. And he’s also become more comfortable at the net. All this and he’s still just 23 years old.

Well, what allowed me to do that was it was always the people who are close to me daily,” Sinner said at the end of the US Open, “people who know me already from when I was very young, and also my family and my team and everyone who supports me daily.  You know, I always try to stick together with them, especially when the moments are getting difficult and tough, because I know that they can help me in these moments.”

Motivation

Sinner is an intriguing mix: an explosive game, housed in a tranquil persona.  “I went away from home when I was 14 years old,” he said earlier this year.  “So I had to grow up quite fast, trying to cook for myself, trying to make laundry. You know, the first times it is different, you know, but then in the other way, that was maybe the fastest way to grow up.”  Indeed, Sinner’s maturity surfaces in everything from his ability to stay calm in matches – such as rallying from two sets to love down versus Daniil Medvedev in the ’24 Australian Open final – to the way he maintained poise around the controversy surrounding his positive drug test.

Maturity makes motivation easy.  Sinner’s blend of power and poise summons another highly motivated champion: Pete Sampras.  At this stage of his career, nothing from Sinner indicates signs of world-weariness or burnout.

Tournaments to Watch

Next up for Sinner is a two-tournament swing – a title defense effort at an ATP 500 event in Beijing, immediately followed by the ATP Masters 1000 stop in Shanghai, where last year Sinner lost to Ben Shelton in the round of 16.