World No.1 Jannik Sinner has beaten Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 with a relentless baseline game to win the US Open men’s singles championship, less than three weeks after being exonerated in a doping case.
Sinner, a 23-year-old from Italy, won the second grand slam trophy of his nascent career – the other was at the Australian Open in January – and prevented No.12 Fritz from ending a major title drought for American men that has lasted 21 years.
Andy Roddick’s triumph at Flushing Meadows in 2003 was the last slam title for a man from the United States. The last before Fritz, a 26-year-old from California, to even contest a final at one of the four biggest tournaments in tennis also was Roddick, who lost to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009.
Sinner’s victory in New York on Sunday (Monday AEST) extended his current winning streak to 11 matches and improved him to 55-5 with a tour-high six titles in 2024.
That includes a 35-2 mark on hard courts, the surface used at both the Australian Open and US Open.
He is the first man since Guillermo Vilas in 1977 to win his first two grand slam trophies in the same season, something such greats as Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Federer never accomplished.
Less than a week before competition began at Flushing Meadows, the world found out that Sinner had tested positive twice for anabolic steroids in March. He was cleared because his use was ruled unintentional – the banned substance entered his system via a massage from a team member he later fired.
Content Source: www.perthnow.com.au