Sinner fit and firing again in timely reminder to US Open rivals

Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic may have hogged the limelight at this summer’s most important events but Jannik Sinner provided a timely reminder on Monday of the high level of play he can produce. The world No1 from Italy claimed his fifth trophy of the year by winning the Cincinnati Open.
It has been a challenging few months for Sinner, who has suffered varying degrees of pain in a hip since April. Having initially dominated the tour in the first quarter of the year, including a first grand-slam title at the Australian Open, he found it difficult to keep his momentum going because of his physical difficulties.
While the discomfort has not fully abated, there have been signs of improvement over the past week. Sinner came through two tough back-to-back three-set matches, against Andrey Rublev, the world No6, and Alexander Zverev, the world No4, before clinching the title with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 win over Frances Tiafoe, the new world No20, in the final.
As a result the state of play is nicely set going into next week’s US Open. Sinner tops the draw sheet as in the in-form No1 seed; Djokovic returns to action as the No2 seed after winning Olympic gold in Paris; and Alcaraz is seeded No3 after claiming the French Open-Wimbledon double.
“This win is very important,” Sinner said. “It is the last tournament before we go to a grand-slam and it’s good to play as many matches as possible. It means a lot to me. I had very good wins here.”
Sinner was pushed hard by Tiafoe in a tight first set before getting his nose in front by edging the tie-break. From there he turned the screw by controlling the baseline rallies, ending the match with a total of 29 winners to his opponent’s 13. At the age of 23, he is the youngest Cincinnati men’s singles champion since a 21-year-old Andy Murray in 2008.
“Now it is important to have a couple of days off working a bit on physical stuff and then to feel the conditions in New York,” Sinner said. “They might be a bit different [compared with the fast hard courts in Cincinnati]. It’s a very special tournament for me to play there. Let’s see what’s coming.”
Tiafoe’s resurgent week may have ended in disappointment but he has at least done enough to move seven spots back up the rankings. The charismatic 26-year-old is one of five Americans ranked inside the top 20 — Taylor Fritz (No12), Ben Shelton (No13), Tommy Paul (No14) and Sebastian Korda (No16) — all of whom will have hopes and dreams of becoming the first home player to win the US Open men’s singles since Andy Roddick in 2003.
In the women’s final Aryna Sabalenka marked her return to world No2 in style with a comfortable straight-sets victory over Jessica Pegula.
The two-times Australian Open champion from Belarus now heads to the US Open as the tournament favourite. She backed up her semi-final win against Iga Swiatek by seeing off Pegula, the world No6 from the United States, 6-3, 7-5 in one hour and 15 minutes.
Pegula was aiming to become the first female singles player to win the Canada Open and Cincinnati Open back-to-back since Australia’s Evonne Goolagong in 1973, but she struggled to handle the firepower coming from the opposite side of the net. Sabalenka hit 28 winners to Pegula’s eight, and won 91 per cent of points on her first serve.
“Andrew [Krasny, the tournament MC] said Aryna and I thought he said Serena, but it felt like Serena today,” Pegula joked afterwards during her post-match interview.
There was a brief blip when Sabalenka served for victory at 5-4 and lost the only break point she had faced throughout the match, but she quickly refocused at 5-5 to immediately break serve for another chance to close out the match.
Sabalenka, 26, had already guaranteed that she would overtake Coco Gauff in the world rankings by reaching the final. Although she will be seeded No2 behind Swiatek, her status with the bookmakers as the leading US Open contender feels right given she did not drop a set in five matches in Cincinnati.
“It has given me a lot of good feelings going into New York,” Sabalenka said. “But this is now in the past and I have to focus on my game, improving myself every day and making sure I bring my best tennis in every match I play.”
Sabalenka’s performance was quite a contrast to the grass-court season, when a shoulder injury left her unable to serve. She withdrew from Wimbledon only hours before her first-round match was due to begin, and also skipped the Paris Olympics to focus on her US Open preparations on the hard courts of North America. There is no sign of any lingering issues so far.
“This trophy means a lot,” Sabalenka said. “This is a really big achievement, especially coming after an injury with this fear of getting injured again. I’m really proud of my team that they did everything they could to make sure I feel as good as I can. I’m proud I was able to handle all those emotions.”
Meanwhile, Paul Jubb, Heather Watson and Sonay Kartal all came through the first round of US Open qualifying on Monday, with two more wins required to book a place in next week’s main draw. Another five British player — Billy Harris, Jan Choinski, Oliver Crawford, Francesca Jones and Lily Miyazaki — start their campaigns on Tuesday.