Sometimes it gets late, early in New York. Flushing was no different on Sunday. Even before the show began at the semi-historic men’s singles final of the 2024 US Open, there was a healthy dose of red, white and blue showmanship. A former American Idol The winner sang “America the Beautiful” as the Stars and Stripes were unfurled on the hard court of Arthur Ashe Stadium, right in front of many thousands of Americans (and several million more at home) who tuned in to watch it from a select number of offerings on the first weekend of our most American pastime, hoping to spot something terribly rare at the Open: a homegrown player winning the title.
That was the pitch, anyway. Taylor Fritz – a real California-born, hot-blooded, 26-year-old American sponsored by Hugo Boss – the first in the US Open final since Andy Roddick was knocked out in four sets in 2006. Then the music stopped and they put the flag away. The number one seed, Italian RPM expert Jannik Sinner, stuck his head out from behind the net and the awakening was quite rude. Three sets, two hours, 16 minutes. We call it “Grand Opening, Grand Closing” on this site.
You know a defeat when you see it. People blush or go quiet — or in this case, both. For the first time in two weeks at Ashe, you could hear traffic, birds and wind between points. From every angle, with every shot, from every part of the court, Sinner dissected Fritz; deconstructing his strengths into weaknesses and his frailties into little deaths, each carrying the cumulative tragedy of the last. As incongruous as the concept may seem, at the peak of power and skill, tennis begins to resemble a martial art. A winner can knock down an opponent, wear him down, or evade him. Only one of these outcomes truly unsettles the spectator – managing to hit the same pressure points on the court as off it. Knock them down hard enough, and everyone is shaken.
It was all strangely rushed. Djokovic, Alcaraz, Gauff, Osaka – a 1st here, a 4th there. All but a few stars were ripped from the sky. In the darkness lay an opportunity that only comes along once every few decades. Call it a coincidence, a hangover from the Olympic year, whatever comes to mind: the only certainty at the 2024 People’s Tournament was that everyone was certain to be shaken.
By the semifinals, that pattern had guaranteed an American finalist on one side of the men’s bracket for the first time in 18 years. The craziest tournament in decades had ended the great low point and half-opened the door for an American. Fritz, the 12th-ranked player in the world, with his sparkling serve and gift for nervous volleys, sauntered on after a five-set showdown with fellow countryman and Open regular Frances Tiafoe. On the other side of the draw, chaos proved Sinner’s own path. In the midst of a PED scandal, at the most explosive moment of his young career, a way presented itself for the 23-year-old Italian to drown out the noise.
Sinner’s fait accompli spanned three symphonic movements of fixed length. In the first, he let Fritz unleash a trademark barrage of screwball forehands from multiple directions. Sinner’s serve was ruthlessly precise and delivered from a ridiculous angle. From a certain perspective, the shot – a center of gravity that has steadily improved over the years – is so diagonal and exerts so much pressure on the earth that its originator looks like a felled tree in a nosedive. Sinner spreads his legs like a frog just as he hits the ball, harnessing all that momentum, weight and power into even more torque on the serve.
In the few decisive moments of the second set, he relied on a collection of instinctive groundstrokes. His hands are his weapon of choice: his ability to pull them up at just the right moment to neutralise an incoming volley. Sometimes the effect is instinctive – the thud of Sinner’s forehand and the echo it leaves behind, refuting the few chants of “USA” that arose in relatively tense sequences. Sometimes they come in delicate form: three drop shots in the second set alone, used to tremendous effect.
The opening game of the third set was the match in miniature. Fritz traded three break points for nothing, the press members crossed out their notes, and everyone sat and watched as Sinner used sheer cunning, toughness, and championship experience to create a five-point swing. Whether he was sliding around like a leggy foal, deftly defusing Fritz’s high-speed volleys, or simply smashing serves at over 130 mph, Sinner spent the later moments of the match fending off one desperate shot after another.
That moment was itself the culmination of two different paths for two different competitors in a post-Big Three-era food chain. Sinner – who had already risen from middle-class roots in a German-speaking Italian mountain village on the Austrian border to an unrivalled place in the history of Italian tennis – was looking to cement his status as an unlikely elite athlete in a global, soccer- and motorsport-obsessed nation. Fritz, whose parents are both professional tennis players, is one of a cadre of players to emerge from the American tennis industrial complex’s decades-long attempt to forge a champion after the combined retirements of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Born in California but molded at the USTA’s junior camp in Boca Raton, Fritz has worked his way steadily to this point and has had moments when his career trajectory seemed seriously in doubt. He may never have been the male junior player with the highest potential, but perhaps he always had the highest minimum.
What that final made clear is that there is a huge gap between what Sinner and the best American men can offer today. In terms of technique, Fritz had no answer to the Italian’s foresight, incredible flexibility and ever-present topspin. Sinner’s unusual understanding of his own physical strengths – sheer size, a fantastic wingspan, limited mobility and seemingly unlimited stride length – set him apart. His competitive mentality, the speed with which he moves and doesn’t let himself be moved, is the part of his game most often compared to that of another Central European showman. After two Grand Slam wins and 14 weeks at the top of the world rankings, Sinner may not be in his own league, but he is clearly better than Fritz.
The “accidental” steroid revelation, however, complicates the story even further. Is Sinner the new red-headed villain of tennis? Misunderstood? Somewhere in between? He is a notorious loser when it comes to his personal life, his beliefs and his attitudes – an obstacle to characterizing his personality. What is known: He is something of a tennis cyborg. He says his nirvana is to “train calmly,” whatever that means. In April, he said fashionabout his quirks on the court: “I like to dance in the pressure storm.” After his victory at the Australian Open in February, he said he had “not been drinking because it’s not good for the body,” and his first thoughts on the flight back to Italy were something like: “How I could improve even further.”
One could interpret this as calling him cautious, calculated, image-conscious or PR-savvy. Another interpretation would be calling Sinner a somewhat shy, mop-haired, multilingual 23-year-old tennis star. The question – for this year, this Open and this champion – is less Is he a villain? and more Shall we make him one? Once a star’s image in an individual sport is established, for better or worse, it can be nearly impossible to shake off. Can the global sporting community get over the fact that Sinner’s involvement in the Clostebol was (as even tennis’s preeminent statesman put it) poorly handled? And that he had no ultimate control over this handling? That is the level of uncertainty that inevitably arises in an imprecise, oversensitive system designed to monitor people who have repeatedly shown that they are willing to push themselves to the limit personally, professionally and physically for the chance to to be a better shooter than anyone they see on the other side of the net.
At the Ashe Festival on Sunday, no one seemed particularly interested in building up or tearing down Sinner. The crowd wanted an American to win. (Although, let’s be honest, probably not.) The Americans.) They may have gone into the fight expecting to find a villain, but what they got was simply efficient, rehearsed—some would even say robotic—excellence.
By the 10th game of the third set, after two hours of smooth drop shots, bone-crushing forehands, bombastic body serves and graceful defense, people were pretty sure what was going on. Fritz had earned himself a chance to win the set. For the first time that afternoon, he had the momentum under control. It was a wild affair. The applause had a life of its own.
Then he messed up: he didn’t so much fall as get picked apart. Sinner conjured up another break point from the shadow of his first real miss of the day. He hit a dainty little drop shot into Fritz’s right service court, which prompted a sliding underhand volley from Fritz and a fierce backhand slice reply from Sinner, all culminating in a botched forehand from Fritz that flew straight into the white net.
Sinner held the next game, because of course he did, and Fritz had to serve to force a playoff that no one – in the stands, in the LED glow of TVs around the world, on the lonely hard court itself – really believed in. Fritz double-faulted to start: 15-0. Then came a bone-breaking forehand from Sinner: 30-0. A tense short serve from both men narrowed the gap to 30-15, but then Fritz smashed a return of a Sinner volley that should have been impossible.
40-15. Nothing but eerie, motionless silence. Then came a second serve at 80 mph, followed by a 16-stroke rally that led – once again – to the most familiar feeling that had come from the two-hour, 16-minute dismantling of American men’s tennis’s best hope for nearly two decades: utter despair.
Roll up the flag. Throw in Fritz and all other hopes for at least another year. The lanky Italian raised his hands in the air, palms outward. The shining chalice came.
“Cheers to Jannik Sinner,” rang out from the loudspeakers shortly afterwards, “your US Open champion.”
