Mumbai: Since the start of last year, Jannik Sinner has turned up for 64 matches on hard courts and walked out on the losing side just thrice. Two of those defeats have come against Carlos Alcaraz.
The last man to beat the Italian on hard courts in Grand Slams was Alexander Zverev, going back 21 matches and one-and-a-half years. The same player appeared rather clueless in stopping the Sinner steamroller, which has now ramped through three hard-court Majors, in the Australian Open final on Sunday.
Two stats and facts that not only highlight the world No.1’s incredible efficiency on the most featured courts on the tour, but also his rapid evolution.
On current look and form, Sinner’s hard-court dominance will take some stopping. What’s also clear, however, is that he has some catching up to do on the other surfaces.
It’s a lot like his fellow world No.1 on the women’s tour — each of Aryna Sabalenka’s three Slams have come on hard courts. It’s also where his biggest rival on the men’s tour has an edge — four-time Slam champion Alcaraz is a French Open, Wimbledon and US Open winner. Flaunting a finer all-court game that blends into the varied demands of hard, clay and grass, the 21-year-old is a more complete player, even if not as consistently superior as his 23-year-old rival. That is what Sinner is after.
“For sure, it’s one thing I think about, no,” Sinner said after his triumph in Melbourne. “You have to be a complete player, not only on one surface but on also the other two.
“On hard courts I feel more comfortable, as you can see. But I take that as a positive,” he added. “It’s exactly that what I like; the difficulties trying to understand where I can improve. Hopefully I can show that when the season arrives.”
Before the “when” there might also be an “if”. Whether the clay season arrives for Sinner will also likely depend on his doping case hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in April. Keeping that uncertainty aside, there’s no apparent reason why Sinner, with the kind of game and mindset he carries, cannot translate his hard-court success into the red dirt and grassy lawns.
For starters, lopsided as his hard-court numbers are (17 of this 19 ATP titles have come on it), his performances on the other two aren’t bad by any stretch. To go with a 79.9 win percentage on hard courts, he has 71.1 percentage on clay and 70 on grass. But a vast majority of his big titles have come on hard courts, and that’s where some defeats — to Emil Ruusuvuori (2023 ATP ‘s-Hertogenbosch, grass) and Stefanos Tsitsipas (2024 Monte Carlo, clay), for example — stand out on other surfaces.
Last season, after exits in the fourth and second round in the previous years, the Italian made the semi-finals of the French Open before losing to eventual champion Alcaraz in five sets. At Wimbledon, he’s made two quarter-finals (2022, 2024) and one semi-final (2023), twice running into Novak Djokovic while going down to Daniil Medvedev last year.
“I believe last year was not a bad season at all on clay and grass,” Sinner said. “I can do better, yes… For sure, we are aiming to get into this rhythm and game style. Because it is different, especially on grass, the movement.”
That movement, among Sinner’s biggest strengths, is sublimely smooth on the artificial courts. On natural clay, where the ball kicks higher and travels slower, it “may be a little bit more difficult”, as Simone Vagnozzi, one of his coaches, put it in Melbourne. Moving on to grass, a surface that Sinner admitted is the most alien to him having not played any junior tennis on it, again demands tweaks in footwork and movement.
A sign that Sinner is getting better at finding his feet on these surfaces, especially on grass, came last year. He won the ATP Halle Open heading into Wimbledon where, according to Vagnozzi, he was “not 100 percent” the day he lost to Medvedev.
“I’m still young. I still have time to adjust,” said Sinner.
That’s the biggest asset. In all these tall things that he has already achieved, it’s easy to forget Sinner is still 23. It’s only been a couple of years that the Italian has been a serious contender in Slams. Djokovic, whose game everyone, including Sinner, believes his game style is mirrored, won his first Slam at the Australian Open in 2008. It took him three years to add a Wimbledon title to his tally, and eight to complete it with the French Open.
With the 24-time Slam champion, it was a question of when more than if. One can’t help but feel the same way about Sinner.
“I’m going to put a lot of energy in that, trying to find the right ways and hopefully go far also in the other Slams,” he said.
