Jannik Sinner, training in Monte Carlo
Jannik Sinner in Monte Carlo
Jannik Sinner after the Wimbledon semifinals is aiming to be a major player in the United States as well, where the cement season is about to begin.
To make himself ready, the South Tyrolean has been training with Norway’s Alexander Kjaer on the concrete at the Monte-Carlo Country Club. This was evidenced by some shots that were posted over the weekend on Instagram, including smiles and posed photos at the end of the work.
Meanwhile, the November ATP Finals in Turin are still four months away, but a first assessment can already be made of the Race ranking, which calculates the current year’s points and will qualify the top eight in this ranking for the year-end event in men’s tennis. The only one already mathematically qualified is Carlos Alcaraz: the fresh Wimbledon triumphant is at 6675 points, already over the current quota that is needed to get the pass, which is currently 6385 points. In second place, still well below, 5945 points, is Novak Djokovic, who has just seen his dream of completing the Grand Slam fade perhaps for good with defeat in the epic final on London’s grass.
In third place is Russia’s Daniil Medvedev with 5120 points, then, significantly further back, in fourth and fifth place, both with 3175 points, are Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas and our own Jannik Sinner. Sixth at 3115 is Russia’s Andrey Rublev, seventh at 3025 is Denmark’s Holger Rune, and eighth at 2400 is Casper Ruud of Denmark. The first of those who would potentially be left out is the U.S. Taylor Fritz at 2085, thus more than 1,000 points behind Sinner, who, however, could be overtaken by 40 points along with Tsitsipas by Rublev if the Russian wins the Baastad final against Ruud today.
But let us come to what interests us most, which is the analysis of Sinner’s season. The South Tyrolean in 2021 played in Turin taking over as a reserve for Matteo Berrettini, who was injured against Sascha Zverev, winning with a 6-2 double against Hubert Hurkacz but then losing 6-0 6-7 7-6 in the last match of the round against Medvedev. These are Sinner’s results so far this year: quarters in Adelaide, eighths at the Australian Open, victory in Montpellier, final in Rotterdam, semifinal in Indian Wells, final in Miami, semifinal in Monte Carlo, quarters in BBarcelona, eighths in Rome, second round at Roland Garros, quarters in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Halle, and semifinal at Wimbledon for a total of 37 matches won and 11 lost.
It is clear that Sinner has never done this well in his career in the first half, or so, of a calendar year, after all, the goal of his staff was to get off to a strong start right away in order to accumulate valuable points for qualifying for the ATP Finals, the stated goal of the season. Jannik has also managed to have a very high continuity of performance, almost always winning against those behind him in the rankings, and things have been much better from a physical standpoint as well. One Slam and four Masters 1000s still remain to be played this year, in addition to all the other tournaments, but at the moment Jannik is in a very good position to qualify for Turin. Now he just needs the last little step: beating the top ten more often, against whom he has an already excellent record of four wins and five losses this year anyway.
