ANALYSIS: How did Jannik Sinner make all the other players look like beginners at the 2024 US Open?

Jannik Sinner won the 2024 US Open and he was pretty impressive and made a lot of players out there look pretty lackluster. How did he do it? Let’s take a closer look. An analysis by James Lloyd (TennisUpToDate).

Before we get into how he did it, we need to mention a few things first. Jannik Sinner was the best hard court player this year, with a 25-2 record on the surface before the tournament. Before the tournament, he had only lost two matches on the surface: one to Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells and the other to Andrey Rublev in Montreal. He was also the reigning world number one and had won four trophies on hard courts up until this year, including the recently concluded Cincinnati Open. He was in many ways the favorite to win this tournament because he was so good on the surface.

There were other great players in the draw, but considering form and everything else, Sinner was expected to do very well, if not win the tournament. With that in mind, his win wasn’t a huge surprise, but he did it by making everyone else look pretty amateur. Now let’s look at why that was the case.

He faces Mackenzie McDonald in the first round, and for a while the American proved to be quite tough. Sinner seemed to be struggling, but that was mainly because he started quite slowly. When he finally got going, he took out his opponents without much trouble, especially from the baseline. As solid as McDonald is, he is not the best hitter, and Sinner was able to simply overpower him from the baseline and cruise to an easy win.

The second match against Alex Michelsen was the one that made everyone sit up and take notice. He beat the Americans down to the limit and once again it was the baseline aggressiveness that made the difference. He hit the ball into the corners consistently and with so much power that his opponents couldn’t really hit it back effectively. This is a big problem for any tennis player because it’s what matters in most rallies. Sinner also has a pretty good return that helps him place his shots and his serve worked well in most matches.

The next match against Christopher O’Connell was no different. Sinner was once again very good and did not even come close to winning. The Italian was simply dangerous from the baseline and O’Connell, like his opponents before him, had no answer. When you are up against one of the best batsmen in the world, you will have problems if you do not hit strong shots yourself.

Tommy Paul brought a lot of hitting power in the next match and it’s no surprise that it was the closest match Sinner had played up to that point. The first two sets went to tiebreaks because Sinner wasn’t as good as he could have been and Paul brought a lot of heat to the match. The American is known as one of the best hitters when he really finds his rhythm and he played a good match. It wasn’t the best he could have been but overall it was pretty good which is why it was so close.

The next match against Daniil Medvedev was the first in which Sinner dropped a set, but it wasn’t necessarily a closer contest. All sets were won comfortably by the winner, and Sinner once again prevailed. Medvedev is a defensive player who likes to play long rallies and wait for his chance to counterattack, but that’s not a good strategy against Sinner. The Italian will just walk on court and hit a winner. That’s exactly what he did all evening against Medvedev, winning the match quite comfortably against a player many consider to be one of the hardest to beat on hard courts, which shows how well Sinner plays.

Jack Draper was his opponent in the semifinals and although it was a fairly close match, Draper was soon overwhelmed. He was overwhelmed mainly because he wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t playing at his best. But with super aggressive baseline play, you can beat Sinner, which is why some gave Taylor Fritz a chance in the final. That didn’t happen because Fritz didn’t hit well enough. He tried and had success at times, but overall he made too many unforced errors to really trouble Sinner.

Basically, Sinner made everyone look like a novice because he was simply the better player. No one he faced could even come close to beating him. The only player to win a set against him, aside from the fluke win over McDonald, was Medvedev, and even that match wasn’t very close.

Sinner’s talent and form put him at a much higher level than his opponents, which is why the matches were not as close as one might expect at a Grand Slam tournament. The Italian is the world number one for exactly this reason. He is consistently better than the rest, and a 57-5 record this year proves that.