Jannik Sinner will rise to a career-high ranking of No. 2 on Monday.
Becoming the second-best player in the world be quite an accomplishment in itself, but that would also be selling Sinner short. Right now is unquestionably the best. There was not much doubt about it heading into the Miami Open, and there is certainly no doubt about it now.
Sinner’s rise to the top of tennis continued on Sunday afternoon with a 6-3, 6-1 rout of Grigor Dimitrov at the Miami Masters. Playing in his third final at this event, the Italian lifted the trophy for the first time after just one hour and 13 minutes.
Dimitrov was also playing some of the best tennis of his life, advancing to the Miami title match for the first time with a run that included victories over Hubert Hurakcz, Carlos Alcaraz, and Alexander Zverev. However, the 32-year-old Bulgarian may have been feeling the physical effects of several difficult matches and even at 100 percent the chips would have been stacked against him with Sinner on the other side of the net.
After holding his first two service games convincingly, it unraveled in a hurry for Dimitrov. Sinner broke at 2-2 and 5-3 in the opening set and then completely dominated the second.
The 22-year-old is now 25-1 in his last 26 matches and 35-2 in his last 37. His ridiculous hot streak includes five titles (Beijing, Vienna, the Australian Open, Rotterdam, and Miami) plus a Davis Cup triumph for Italy. Sinner dropped only one set in Miami (to Tallon Griekspoor during third-round action) and other than Griekspoor no opponent was more competitive than 6-4 in any set.
“I’m really proud obviously about the result,” Sinner assured. “I started off struggling a little bit this week. I haven’t had so much time to adapt on this court, so I knew in the beginning that it’s going to be tough. As the tournament went on, I felt better and better. Today’s performance was really, really good. I’m just proud how I handled the situation. It was not easy, so it was a very, very good two weeks.”
too good, Jannik
Carrots all around!!!!🎾💪
Looking back at Grigor’s career, is it fair to say that he is one of the underachievers who could have won more? a bit like Tomas Berdych.
neither Dimitrov nor Berdych would be at the top of my underachievers list
They were hindered by the Big Three.
Yes, but they are regarded as underachievers because of their ability. They have a few weaknesses in their game that hold them back.
Dimitrov lacks a real weapon, and Berdych hits it too flat. Dimitrov is great when he’s out to prove a point and brings the intensity that’s required but as soon as he starts to care he comes up short, which is usually in a final.
If he keeps persisting he will eventually turn up to a final with the same mindset that got him there.
Your definition of underachiever is of a player who really wasn’t good enough, I’d say it was a player who did have the ability but never won much for whatever other reason.
Like Del potro was always injured. Even Rafa was an underachiever on grass.
Wawrinka and Del Potro were the only ones who could bring that same level in a major final. It was a conscious decision for Wawrinka because he knew his power and shot-making ability were his edge. He knew he had a big red line.
Wawrinka was Djokovic’s nemesis. Was prepared to rally with him and knew he had the power when he was ready.
Agree, Stan has the weapons but still fell short when it comes to Novak, he did inflict few painful loses to Nole but also fell well short of being compared to Nole on, not the same, but even close level, their h2h is 21 : 6 in favour of Nole, not even going to compare titles!
PS
He did similar to Rafa but never to Roger, he was his b..h.
That’s bullshit, there was hardly anything separating them at the later stages of their H2H.
Since when we pick and chose only certain parts of career, the one that suits our narrative, when comparing the players.
Who remember today that Andy was troubling Federer big time from the word go and had healthy positive h2h until 2010/11 and when everyone expected him to excel he collapsed mentally and game wise, wasn’t able to follow the other three, so Federer managed to turn the tables on him and build convincing h2h.
Everyone has ups and downs during their respective careers, but you don’t choose certain few years to compare the two players but entire career and Nole and Stan played almost 20 years against each other on, so that’s what matters, their careers against each other as a whole, 21:6 my friend, that’s pretty convincing to me.
^^……and you can’t even use the age excuse since Stan is two years older so he had advantage at the start of their rivalry.
Between 2007-2013 Stan lost 14 consecutive matches to Nole and you are taking about Stan being Nole’s “nemesis”, even after that it was 6:4, really?! I wouldn’t even call it rivalry.
Natural ability is only part of the equation, you also need a formula and mindset that doesn’t break down under pressure. Easier said than done when you have an opponent that is teeing off on both wings and rarely missing.
Cahill is the last piece Sinner needed to reach the top. KJ
I don’t like Cahill, very calculated person, he set up Halep to go to Mouratoglou and get rid of her in order to be free agent and “possibly” join Sinner, very cunning man.
smart decision
you make it sound like he was married to Simona.
Not at all, what I said is that Simona was stupid (naive) enough to accept Cahill recommendation, believing it was in good faith, to join dodgy Mouratoglu which costed her her testing positive and being banned for two or so years which was later overturned but too little too late for Simona.
I have no doubt in my mind that dodgy Mouratoglu has something to do with her testing positive, that’s why he jumped into her defence and later was very defensive about the incident.