Jannik Sinner, mind-boggling numbers: better even than the Big 3 in one particular statistic
No record is untouchable if it is Jannik Sinner who tries to approach it. The most incredible aspect, by the way, is that the outfielder from Sesto Pusteria does so without proclamations, with the naturalness of someone who lives each tournament as an opportunity to improve and, at the same time, push his limits a little further. Yet reality tells that the world’s number one is building a collection of achievements to put even Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the three legends who laid down the law in the first quarter century, to shame.
The victory over Arthur Fils in the semifinals at the Miami Masters 1000, the 27th consecutive in 1,000-point tournaments and the 22nd in a row since last Feb. 19, handed Sinner a record that weighs heavy: at 24 years and 260 days, he has in fact become the youngest tennis player ever to reach at least one final in all nine Masters 1000s. An en plein that, before him, had succeeded only (ça va sans dire) to Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, but not so soon. Jannik, in fact, got there a year before Nole (who remains the only one to have won them all).
Sinner now goes into the Madrid final with another page of history at hand: to become the first player capable of winning five consecutive Masters 1000s. But that’s not all: the success against Fils also unlocked another symbolic milestone, as Sinner is the first tennis player born in the 2000s to hit 350 wins on the major circuit. In the Open era, only three Italians are ahead of him: Fognini (426), Panatta (395) and Seppi (386). A distance that, at this pace, seems destined to shorten rapidly.
Then there is perhaps the most impressive figure, the one that certifies how much of a legend Sinner already is at only 25 years of age: the 14,000 points in the ATP ranking. A threshold that, in history, only three players have surpassed, the likes of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal. To find oneself in that company, at this age, tells more than a thousand analyses. All this, without Jannik ever making record hunting a stated mission. But the numbers, those do, speak for themselves: we are in front of a player who is redefining the boundaries of the game.
