{"id":114334,"date":"2025-09-02T23:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T23:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/114334\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T23:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T23:53:07","slug":"the-u-s-open-is-the-strangest-grand-slam-can-jannik-sinner-tame-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/114334\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. Open is the strangest Grand Slam. Can Jannik Sinner tame it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of the U.S. Open 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. \u2014 For a couple of hours Saturday afternoon, even the unflappable Jannik Sinner<\/a> looked as though he was about to enter a long line of reigning U.S. Open<\/a> champions to be thwarted. Denis Shapovalov, the firecracker Canadian, had Sinner down 0-3 in the third set with a point for 0-4. But Sinner, as he so often does, recognized that there was a lot of tennis to play and asked Shapovalov if he could play it, too. Sinner prevailed, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.<\/p>\n

In an era of men\u2019s tennis in which one or possibly two players have tended to lock up each individual major, the U.S. Open stands apart. Not since 2008 has a man successfully defended the title here, when Roger Federer won the last of his five U.S. Opens. All of the other majors have been successfully defended far more recently \u2014 either this year or last year, by Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since 2008, Novak Djokovic<\/a> has gone on winning streaks of three in a row at the Australian Open (twice) and four in a row at Wimbledon. Rafael Nadal<\/a> went on runs of five in a row and four in a row at Roland Garros. And Djokovic, who might have been expected to dominate here like he did in Melbourne and in London at his peak, has never managed to do so.<\/p>\n

Sunday night in New York he recalled his 2012 title defense being disrupted when a tornado warning saw his semifinal against David Ferrer abandoned for the day, with spectators sent home. A shoulder injury ended his title defense in 2019; in 2020 he was defaulted for striking a line judge with a ball, and in 2021 he was overwhelmed by the emotion of being one match away from tennis\u2019 holy grail: the calendar Grand Slam.<\/p>\n

Daniil Medvedev<\/a>, once \u2014 and still \u2014 a pantomime villain in New York known for taunting the crowd, embraced the chaos to beat Djokovic in that final.<\/p>\n

The last 11 editions of the U.S. Open men\u2019s singles tournament have included eight different winners. Three of them lifted their only major title here. In the same period, there have been five winners at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and four at the French Open.<\/p>\n

All of which sets up the week ahead as the clash between the player who typifies calm and control and the venue that exudes chaos. Sinner, who is also the world No. 1 and who has won the last three hard-court Grand Slams, takes on a player with the opposite temperament, the mercurial and unpredictable No. 23 seed Alexander Bublik, on Monday at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.<\/p>\n

Tennis can overindex on these kinds of statistics, searching for a unifying theory of chaos where one does not exist. But at the U.S. Open, several players said that what feels like randomness and unpredictability actually has its roots in the very time and place of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Madison Keys<\/a>, who was so fresh when she won the Australian Open in January, admitted that she allowed bad habits to return during her first-round defeat to Renata Zaraz\u00faa<\/a> because she did not have the energy to stop them. Every four years, the Olympics takes place just before the U.S. Open, leaving players even more emotionally and physically exhausted coming into the year\u2019s final major. Witness Djokovic and Alcaraz both bombing out early last year, after their emotional gold medal match a few weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

Alexander Zverev, who reached his first Grand Slam final here in 2020, only to lose to Dominic Thiem, who lifted the only major title of his career, said its place in the schedule was \u201cthe biggest reason\u201d for the U.S. Open\u2019s unpredictability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the Masters events, the most unpredictable tournament is Paris Bercy, the last Masters event of the year,\u201d Zverev said, before the No. 3 seed exited this year\u2019s event at the third-round stage to Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a>, who had previously never beaten a top-five player at a major.<\/p>\n

The last player to successfully defend the men\u2019s singles title at the U.S. Open before Federer was Pat Rafter. The Australian won his two Grand Slam titles in New York, in 1997 and 1998. His strategy was to embrace the madness and let other players fall apart amid distractions and uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always one of those people that liked it when other people were uncomfortable, because I knew I had an advantage,\u201d he said in a video interview last week. \u201cI\u2019d sit there and know they\u2019re not enjoying this. It\u2019s too loud, or the smells of the hot dogs are p\u2014ing them off. Or the planes going overhead and the wind. The people talking through points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bublik, who thrives on chaos of his own creation on the court and that of the crowd off it, will tap into that dynamic against the metronomic Sinner.<\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka, the only multiple women\u2019s winner from the last 11 editions, joked on Saturday that New York brings out her best behavior, rather than irritation. This year in New York, various players have had run-ins with each other and with umpires, among them Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Jelena Ostapenko.<\/p>\n

Jessica Pegula, last year\u2019s beaten finalist, referenced this ahead of the tournament. \u201cWe have seen a lot of those stories over the years on the men\u2019s and women\u2019s side where the crowd gets behind somebody, or like Medvedev when he flipped the crowd that one year (2019),\u201d she said. \u201cThere are so many storylines I think of the crowd kind of taking people and carrying them through in whatever way you kind of embrace them. I don\u2019t think you get that at the other Slams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another factor, according to several players, is New York itself. Sinner identified this in his pre-tournament news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are sleeping in the city, it takes one hour to come in,\u201d he said. The commute from Manhattan to Queens is in stark contrast to the other majors. At Wimbledon, players generally cocoon themselves in a house, a short walk from the All England Club and well away from the hustle and bustle of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to keep consistent, because you have to deal with the traffic, you have deal with the city,\u201d Tsitsipas, who was knocked out of this year\u2019s event by Daniel Altmaier in a typically fractious late-night New York affair, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall things,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cBut I feel if you don\u2019t handle them very well, then it\u2019s also very difficult to play the best possible tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iga \u015awi\u0105tek, who won the title in 2022 but did not succeed in defending it, has spoken of how the city affects her natural routines on several occasions. She prefers day sessions over the famed Arthur Ashe Stadium nights.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be the calmest slam and the one that is, like, focused on players that much, because it\u2019s more focused on entertainment and the show. So we kind of need to adjust to that and accept that. It\u2019s always kind of tougher to be in a bubble here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Iga \u015awi\u0105tek tamed the Arthur Ashe night session to beat Anna Kalinskaya in the third round. (Charly Triballeau \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

So, can Sinner bring order to the most chaotic major?<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe Djokovic hasn\u2019t won twice in a row here,\u201d said Brad Gilbert, the former world No. 4 who coached Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick to U.S. Open titles, in a phone interview last week. \u201cBut this guy [Sinner] is amazing on a hard court and, I wouldn\u2019t be shocked over the next seven, eight years, if he wins five of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One element that could help Sinner is the absence this year of one of the tournament\u2019s usual variables: the weather. The sweltering heat and oppressive humidity of late summer in New York can wipe out a tournament favorite \u2014 Federer looked to be drowning in his own sweat against the unseeded John Millman in 2018 \u2014 but the conditions are relatively clement this year. This is especially helpful for Sinner, who has at times struggled in the heat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look like we\u2019ll have it this year but that can be a variable that can really throw things upside down,\u201d said Jim Courier, the former world No. 1 and Tennis Channel analyst at the U.S. Open, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Courier, a four-time Grand Slam champion, is another who could never tame the New York beast.<\/p>\n

Sinner himself said that at the U.S. Open \u201cit changes a lot if you play at night or if you play (during the) day.\u201d It was a day match against Shapovalov on Saturday, as it was against Holger Rune at the Australian Open earlier this year, when he struggled in the conditions and was given a reprieve when a broken net enforced a short delay in play.<\/p>\n

Sinner, who in his own words likes to \u201cdance in the pressure storm,\u201d knows he is not immune to the chaos. That should make for an interesting second week, as well as a compelling encounter with the engimatic Bublik.<\/p>\n

As Sinner put it on Saturday after getting past Shapovalov, he is not a machine.<\/p>\n

(Top photo: Clive Brunskill \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of the U.S. Open 2025. FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. \u2014 For a couple of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-114334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}