Jannik Sinner’s season was already an amazing one even before he arrived at the Davis Cup Finals. The 22-year-old captured his first Masters 1000 title in Toronto, won three other tournaments, and finished runner-up at the Miami Masters and the Nitto ATP Finals.
It got even better this past week in Malaga, Spain. Sinner compiled a perfect 5-0 record (3-0 singles, 2-0 doubles) and defeated Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-0 in the cup-clinching match for Italy on Sunday evening. That came one day after the Italians were one point from elimination against Serbia when Sinner trailed Novak Djokovic 4-5, 0-40 in the third set of their second singles rubber. The world No. 4 somehow stormed back for a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 victory and then won the decisive singles rubber with Lorenzo Sonego.
Here is what was said about Sinner throughout his historic week in Malaga:
Netherlands captain Paul Harrhuis on his team’s quarterfinal loss to Italy: “The moment Jannik landed here in Malaga. I think that’s where it went wrong…. He just played very well, singles and doubles. We know he’s on fire; we know he’s got confidence. I felt like it was the Sinner show today.”
Tallon Griekspoor on his singles loss: “I think the match we played today was much higher quality than back in Rotterdam in February. I think he improved immensely–improved a lot. I think he shows how important confidence is in tennis. He just played really well. I mean, he’s full of confidence. He’s playing super well. He improved a lot. For me, I have always been a big fan of him. I think he’s one of the best players in the world. I think he has a chance of being No. 1.”
Wesley Koolhof on the doubles loss: “I think he missed one volley, which was somewhere (near) the end of the match when he actually wanted to let it go. The rest he made. He served unbelievably well. I think he was around 80 percent, 85 percent first serve in. Even if he hit a second serve, it was still 180 (km/hr). Played unbelievable. I think Sonego maybe started a little bit shaky, but if you have such a high-class player next to you who is barely missing a shot, it’s easy to just tag along and enjoy the ride.”
Djokovic: “Congratulations to Italy for qualifying for finals. They deserved it. They played really well, particularly Jannik in singles against me and then doubles, as well. He barely missed the ball the entire match. So, you know, you can only say congrats and hats [off] for the performance like that.”
Australia captain Lleyton Hewitt: “Jannik, he’s played awesome all week. Yeah, the last few weeks, to be honest, last few months. So he showed why he’s a top 3 or 4 player in the world at the moment. He backed up what he did yesterday against Novak and played extremely good tennis.”
De Minaur: “I think probably Novak said maybe a week ago, Jannik is riding this amazing wave of confidence. You know, he’s playing in indoor conditions with some heavy balls where he can hit the absolute crap out of the ball. He’s seriously impressive the level he’s showing.”
Italy captain Filippo Volandri: “Jannik gave us a lot of things. We don’t have enough time to explain how many things he gave us.”
too good by Sinner