Sinner on hard court is unbeatable. Master, but always humble
(Gaia Piccardi, sent to Turin) Not only is the number one tennis player Italian. So is the master who gives lessons in Turin, a rare example of a prophet in his homeland, like Connors and McEnroe at Madison Square Garden (ah, that blue field without corridors), Becker in Frankfurt, Hewitt in Sydney and Murray in London. At the rate of 23 years and 93 days, Jannik Sinner overwrites one’s name in the roll of honor over that of Novak Djokovic defending champion of the ATP Finals, the champion to whom he lost in the final last year, swearing to himself that it would never happen again.
In the indoor dimension, the one most congenial to him, the habitat in which last year in Davis he laid the foundations of his domination (the three match points canceled out by Djoker in Malaga, the revolving door of his career), the chosen one is unbeatable and there is nothing that Taylor Fritz, already defeated on Tuesday in the group and in New York for the US Open title, can do to stem that red fury with a running nose, forced by a cold to breathe with his mouth open and, for the first time – he who is usually as silent as a war submarine – to make sounds during the exchange. «Incredible», Fritz tells him at the end, settled in two sets (6-4, 6-4 as in the group) like De Minaur, Medvedev and Ruud between bananas, dates and handkerchiefs. The first fruit of a title in Italy is already a cult moment in the galloping Sinnerian hagiography: “What a week… This is a truly special trophy.”
One minute after the end of the match, while Jannik runs to embrace his two families, natural and tennis, the presale for the 2025 Finals opens, home to Sinner, and shortly after Andrea Gaudenzi, Faenza president of the ATP Tour, takes up the microphone to make the announcement that Jannik’s people and Federtennis were waiting for: «I am happy to announce that the ATP Finals will remain in Italy for another five years, until 2030″. It is a double triumph, on the eve of the trip to Davis in which the national team (Sinner, Musetti, Berrettini, Vavassori and Bolelli as predicted) is called to defend the salad bowl won in 2023 by Jannik and his brothers, in the wake of age of the gold of our sport.
In a one-sided final, like large excerpts of this beautiful and terrible season which still leaves the Clostebol case suspended in the hands of the Tas, called to decide on the appeal presented by the world anti-doping against the first degree acquittal sentence, everything passes through the serve that Fritz, now no.4, seems to have sharpened in the semi-final with Zverev (the American opens with an ace at 214 km per hour) but Sinner is a block in response and in the longest game of the match, the seventh of the first set at 3-3, at the fourth break point he first takes the lead, then the partial (6-4) and finally, with another break at 2-2, the match. Under the rain of confetti, here is again the sober exultation of the season of ghosts, the hinted smile, the restrained emotions that only the overwhelming affection of the Turin arena manages to thaw: «In terms of sensations, compared to last year, there are no it’s a comparison – he says -. There is no more beautiful place to end the ATP season. I won but the work will never stop, I have room for improvement».
He has more difficulty uncorking the bottle of sparkling wine than putting the Finals in his pocket, then they tell him that he has to lift the cup, it’s not enough to hug it, and he does so, docile and exhausted. At the Principi di Piemonte, cordoned off to contain the crazy love of the fans, the fourteenth dinner in the hotel with the team and parents (guests in the same hotel) sanctifies the triumph that seals the year of 8 titles, two Slams and three Master 1000s, of 70 victories out of 76 matches played, of the ATP Finals torn to pieces by the home champion like Adriano Panatta did with the Internazionali del Foro Italico in ’76, the first king without losing a set along the way since 1986 (Lendl).
A few days after Rafa Nadal’s retirement from the Davis Cup, the Big Three have never seemed so distant and obsolete. Federer good for the sponsors’ commercials, Djokovic early retired by Sinner, the Next Gen generation dazed in front of the Italian talent who blew everyone away, including Alcaraz who he will meet again in Malaga in Davis being able to get by, with the typical understatement of those he’s already thinking about how to enrich his shots and tactics, like a master. Humble, but master.
