Melbourne: There are all sorts of ways beyond merely the score to measure just how dominant Jannik Sinner was while outplaying and frustrating Alexander Zverev during the 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory Sunday that earned the 23-year-old Italian a second consecutive Australian Open championship.
The zero break points Sinner faced. Or the 10 he accumulated. The 27-13 advantage in points that lasted at least nine strokes. Or the way Sinner accumulated more winners, 32 to 25, and fewer unforced errors, 27 to 45. The way Sinner won 10 of the 13 points that ended with him at the net. Or the way he only let Zverev go 14 of 27 in that category, frequently zipping passing shots out of reach.
Well, here’s is one more bit of evidence: what Zverev said about Sinner.
“I’m serving better than him, but that’s it. He does everything else better than me. He moves better than me. He hits his forehand better than me. He hits his backhand better than me. He returns better than me. He volleys better than me,” Zverev said. “At the end of the day, tennis has five or six massive shots — like, massive factors — and he does four or five of them better than me. That’s the reason why he won.”
High praise from a guy who is, after all, ranked No. 2. Sinner has held the No. 1 spot since last June and is not showing any signs of relinquishing it. This was the first Australian Open final between the men at No. 1 and No. 2 since 2019, when No. 1 Novak Djokovic defeated No. 2 Rafael Nadal — also in straight sets.
“It’s amazing,” Sinner said, “to achieve these things.”
The “things” include being the youngest man to leave Melbourne Park with the trophy two years in a row since Jim Courier in 1992-93, and the first man since Nadal at the French Open in 2005 and 2006 to follow up his first Grand Slam title by repeating as the champion at the same tournament a year later.
Sinner was asked later whether he felt more relief or excitement when he raised his arms after the last point was his.
“This one was joy. We managed to do something incredible this time, because the situation I was in was completely different from a year ago here,” he said. “I had more pressure.”
Probably true, but’s hard to tell.
Go to the start of 2024, and take stock. In that span, Sinner has won three of the five major tournaments, including the U.S. Open in September, meaning he now has claimed three straight hard-court Slams. His record is 80-6 with nine titles. His current unbeaten run covers 21 matches.
“There’s always something that can get better,” said one of his two coaches, Simone Vagnozzi. “He is playing really well right now and everything comes easily. But there will be tough moments ahead.”
The only thing that’s clouded the past 12 months for Sinner, it seems, is the doping case in which his exoneration was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency. He tested positive for a trace amount of an anabolic steroid twice last March but blamed it on an accidental exposure involving two members of his team who have since been fired. Sinner initially was cleared in August; a hearing in the WADA appeal is scheduled for April.
“I keep playing like this because I have a clear mind on what happened,” Sinner said Sunday. “I know if I would be guilty, I would not play like this.”
While he became the eighth man in the Open era (which began in 1968) to start his career 3-0 in Grand Slam finals, Zverev is the seventh to be 0-3, adding this loss to those at the 2020 U.S. Open and last year’s French Open.
Those earlier setbacks both came in five sets. This contest was not that close. Not at all.
“I’ll keep doing everything I can,” Zverev said, “to lift one of those trophies.”
Just before Zverev began speaking into a microphone during the trophy ceremony, a voice cried out from the stands, making reference to two of the player’s ex-girlfriends who accused him of physical abuse.
During the match, there truly was only one moment that contained a hint of tension. It came when Zverev was two points from owning the second set at 5-4, love-30. But a break point — and a set point — never arrived.
A year ago, Sinner went through a lot more trouble to earn his first major, needing to get past Novak Djokovic — who quit one set into his semifinal against Zverev on Friday because of a torn hamstring — before erasing a two-set deficit in the final against 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev.
This time, Sinner applied pressure with an all-around style that does not really appear to have holes.
He proved superior in every meaningful way other than aces, leaving Zverev shaking his head or trudging to the sideline with shoulders sagging or cracking his racket against the court or against another racket.
Perfectly understandable, given what Sinner can do to an opponent, especially on a hard court.
AP
