The 22-year-old Italian wins his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open. In a high-class final, he defeated Daniil Medvedev 3:6, 3:6, 6:4, 6:4, 6:3 in just under four hours after trailing in two sets. This is the to-date highlight of an impressive young career, which really took off five years ago with his first ATP Challenger title in Bergamo.
The atmosphere at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne boiled over when Jannik Sinner converted his first championship point with a thunderous forehand winner. Sinner's triumph in Australia makes him the first Italian Grand Slam winner since Adriano Panatta in 1976.
In the first two sets, there was little to suggest that Sinner would win. Daniil Medvedev surprised the Italian with an unusually aggressive game. He returned from a much more offensive position than usual, kept looking for the net and hit winner after winner from the forehand and backhand corners.
However, the longer the match went on, the better Sinner got into the rallies and took control of the match. As a result, Medvedev felt the strain of his exhausting matches on the way to the final. By the end of the tournament, the Russian had played four five-set matches and spent an incredible 24 hours and 17 minutes on court – a Grand Slam record.
Sinner took a break in each of sets 3, 4 and 5 and made himself Grand Slam champion with his 50th winner in total.
Jannik Sinner, who only started intensive performance training at the age of nine and relatively late for a tennis pro, played on the ATP Challenger Tour for the first time in August 2018 thanks to a wildcard in Como, but lost his opening match straight away. However, his first title followed just a few months later at only his third tournament at Challenger level. In February 2019, Sinner – ranked number 546 in the ATP world rankings – beat two top 200 players, Salvatore Caruso and Gianluigi Quinzi, on his way to the title in Bergamo. As a result, he moved up over 200 places in the world rankings and achieved a new high ranking of 324th.
His first participation in an ATP Tour tournament followed in Budapest in April 2019 – and his first victory in a main draw against the Hungarian Maté Valkusz. In Lexington (USA) and Ortisei in Val Gardena (ITA), Sinner won the Challenger titles no. 2 and 3 in 2019 and ended the year ranked no. 553 on the ATP Tour.