Watching Jannik Sidder glide around Rod Laver Arena on Friday as he dismantled Novak Djokovic, it was easy to understand how the Italian carved through the Alps as a child.
Djokovic has always been a supreme mover on a tennis court, with the 10-time champion’s flexibility and ease of movement a factor in his ascension to legendary status.
A champion skier in his youth, Sinner is blessed with similar fluidity and balance.
Watching him slide into forehands, recalibrate and whiz towards the backhand wing before setting himself and striking the ball is like watching someone flowing through a slalom run.
A flag ticked off. Pivot. Reassess. Plot the best path towards the next one. Balance, rhythm and motion. All seemingly at ease despite the acceleration of his movement.
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The beauty of superb footwork on a tennis court is that it enables a player to execute a stroke with near perfection every single time.
Like a skier picking off moguls, Sinner has been firing off forehands and bouncing into backhands while beautifully balanced throughout the Australian Open.
It is the same when returning. Against Djokovic, he was near flawless in this regard.
And the 22-year-old is using his strong glutes and long levers to drive up to a ball toss that hovers for just an instant before he clubs it at the peak of its height. It is near perfection.
Djoker out after Sinner defeat | 03:23
For the past three months, Jannik Sinner has been the best tennis player in the world. Defeating the King of Melbourne Park three times in four outings in big matches, from the ATP Tour Finals to the Davis Cup and now at a grand slam, confirms this.
It does not mean Djokovic is dusted. To reach the semi-finals while below par physically and in form suggests a rebound when the 24-time major champion is fit. Look out Wimbledon.
Nor does it mean Sinner will defeat Daniil Medvedev in what shapes as an intriguing final.
The Russian has the heart of a lion, the cunning of a rat and the endurance of a marathoner. He owns a superb record on hard courts and has the nous to knock the best off balance.
Many judges believed the Italian’s time was nigh heading into the Australian summer and regardless of the result, Sinner will leave Melbourne on Monday having taken a step forward.
But if he can retain the form that has seen him drop only one set to date, Sunday night’s final will confirm his coronation as a grand slam champion. That is how good Sinner is.
WORLD TAKES NOTE AS A SINNER TAKES DOWN A DEMON
Alex de Minaur served as the tennis equivalent of the canary down a coal mine at the ATP Tour Next Gen Championships in Milan in 2019.
The Australian was a finalist a year earlier in a tournament featuring the best players aged 21 or under when beaten by Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has since made two grand slam finals.
De Minaur, who will drop one spot to 11 when the rankings are released on Monday, was the top seed for the 2019 event also featuring current stars Caspar Ruud and Frances Tiafoe.
By virtue of hosting the event, Italy was allowed a wildcard entrant and offered it to a skinny kid with a mop of red hair showing immense promise on the ATP Challenger circuit.
The Italians knew what they had. And by the time he whipped De Minaur 4-2 4-1 4-1 in the final, the tennis world knew as well. An ascending star named Sinner was coming.
Not long after Sinner, who drove fans attending the Milan event into a frenzy, was named the ATP Tour Newcomer of the Year and has scarcely taken a backwards step since.
ENTER THE KILLER
Walking away from a hand that has guided you towards greatness is a difficult thing but that is what Sinner did after leaving Melbourne a couple of years ago.
Despite reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open after another heavy defeat of de Minaur, the 20-year-old felt he was stalling.
That led to a critical change in his career, with the right-hander ending his partnership with Riccardo Piatti, who had worked with Novak Djokovic and Milos Raonic among others.
He began working with Simone Vagnozzi, who formerly coached Marco Cecchinato, and by midway through the 2022 season master coach Darren Cahill had joined the team.
Nicknamed “Killer”, Cahill is the son of legendary Port Adelaide coach John Cahill and was good enough to reach the semi-finals of the US Open as a player in 1988.
But it is as a coach where Cahill has left his mark. He guided Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi and Simona Halep to the world’s No.1 ranking. And he has worked with other top-liners.
Sinner seems on a similar trajectory.
A point here or there in a classic against another young sensation in Carlos Alcaraz in a remarkable US Open quarterfinal in 2022 and Sinner might already be a major champion.
The team made clear they were building for sustained success as they went to work on adding further strength to Sinner’s serve while rounding out some of the rougher edges.
As Djokovic said after his loss on Friday; “He has a great team. He is on a very good path.”
“I think his serve (has) improved a lot. He’s hitting his corners very well, and I think he has upped his speed as well. (He is) serving bigger now and more precisely,” Djokovic said.
“(His) movement overall and mental (strength is better). He was always very calm, very composed on the court, but I think he struggled maybe to win the big matches, you know, the big moments. But now it’s coming together for him.
“Of course Darren Cahill, who is a very experienced coach and someone that has worked with former No. 1s in the world, obviously having him in his corner is very helpful from the mental side of things, of course, along with everything else.”
The chemistry between the team is clear and is a reason why Sinner seems so comfortable.
After his triumph over Djokovic, the right-hander walked back into the press room to quiz his coaches during their conference, who in return fired a couple of quick retorts his way.
Calmer or karma? Medvedev on match point | 01:27
Cahill was asked what Sinner has in common with his former champions. While listing the traits, he touched on his humour as well.
“Work ethic, purpose, desire, willingness to learn (and the) tennis IQ of all those champions is fantastic,” Cahill said.
“Jannik has all that. He’s got a sense of humour. I think you can get a bit of a sense for it on the court in after-match interviews. We see it every single day.
“He’s a good guy, and he’s a fun-loving guy. He likes to be around people he enjoys, whether that be before we started working with him or with us in our team at the moment. We have a really good feeling within the team.”
American Chris Eubanks, who reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon last year, said the Italian is a kind person who does his best to make others feel welcome or appreciated.
“First off, Jannik is one of the most popular guys in the locker room,” he told ESPN.
“I think all the players take a sense of pride and happiness to see his success on this stage. He is a player that gets along with everyone, speaks to everyone, whether it is the locker room attendants, the other players, saying good luck.
“We also know he has dealt with a couple of heartbreaks in big matches. To see him climb the mountaintop, although he still has one more match to go, I think it shows everyone in the locker room that (if) you continue to work hard, you continue to put in the work, you don’t get dejected when things don’t go your way, then good things can happen.”
Cahill, for his part, credited fitness coach Umberto Ferrara for building a 22-year-old capable of maintaining his health and strength through the rigours of a grand slam tournament.
“I think the natural progression that Jannik needed to make everybody could see, but I think the coaching comes down to being able to give those messages in the right way, that he would believe in it, absorb it, and then do it on the practice court, then eventually do it in matches. Which is kind of what we’re seeing a little bit of now,” he said.
“The physical part was just as important as the tennis. I think you can see that now that he’s able to move more efficiently and he can hold that higher level for longer and be able to do that in five-set matches.
“So it wasn’t just tennis. It was about looking after his body from a physical standpoint but also getting the right treatment and care of his body when he’d step off the court to make sure he’s doing the right things.”
SINNING BEFORE STARDOM
If Sinner seemed close at the US Open in 2022, a straight sets defeat to Djokovic in the Wimbledon semi-final last July suggested that he still had a significant gulf to bridge.
Craig O’Shannessy, the Austin-based Australian analyst who has worked with Novak Djokovic and also the Italian Tennis Federation, said it proved a vital experience.
“He has progressed in a way that good losses have turned into good wins,” O’Shannessy told foxsports.com.au.
“He led Novak by two sets to love at Wimbledon in 2022 and then he lost the next year in straight sets and thought it was better. But either way, he has learnt from those losses.
“The Italians study everything. I have been involved with them for 10 years, delivering analytics, and they are the best in the world at absorbing analytics and absorbing game plans. It is a team effort driving Jannik.”
Another date with “the Demon” in the final of the Canadian Masters last August signalled Sinner was truly becoming a contender.
He defeated de Minaur in straight sets to claim his first Masters title and, aside from a brief blip in New York when beaten in five sets by Alexander Zverev, has been largely brilliant.
Sinner defeated Djokovic in the round-robin stages of the ATP Finals, but then lost the decider to him.
A week later he trumped the Serbian superstar in a Davis Cup semi-final before dismantling de Minaur once again to clinch a drought-breaking title for Italy dating back to 1976.
In the last six months he has gained the upper-hand in rivalries against Djokovic and Medvedev, his opponent on Sunday night, who he has beaten three times since October.
“He’s got the qualities I believe that a lot of the great champions in the game have, but you’ve got to start winning to let that come to fruition,” Cahill said.
“So he’s making little steps. He had a good finish to the year last year. He gained a lot of belief from what he was able to do. You have to change and your game has to evolve.
“That’s what Jannik has been attempting to do for the last couple of years. That’s a great quality and that’s what he needs to continue to do. Never stop evolving and never stop getting better.”
Med’s miraculous comeback seals final | 02:36
O’Shannessy said Sinner’s willingness to step into the court was a factor in his rise, so too the quality of his serving. Throughout the Australian Open, he has dropped serve just twice.
“He steps forward to the ball really well and a lot of people don’t see that. He never, ever waits for it,” he said.
“Sinner has an infatuation with moving forward to a short ball to take it as early as he can, to take the time away from his opponent and open up the geometry of a court.
He is unbelievable at that.
“And he has got a huge bomb (of a serve) out wide that players just can’t keep up with. The angle is too good. The speed is too good.
“With his new, improved simple motion that he has put together in the last year, he can hit that really, really well and knows that when he goes to the ad court when he needs a point, he has that serve where nobody can touch it. Not even Novak.”
RIVAL RESPECT
Gilles Cervara, who has coached Medvedev to a US Open championship and five other finals, has watched Sinner’s progression from a challenger to true contender.
The Russian won their first six clashes. Now the head-to-head is six-three in his favour and Cervara said Sinner “is playing amazing tennis”.
Medvedev knows that he has to raise the bar again to defeat the young Italian and hopes the nerves that come with being a first-time finalist will help his cause. And he will give it a shake.
“In my opinion, there is nothing too much of a tactical change when he won the last three (matches),” he said.
“He (was) a little more serve-and-volley, maybe a little more aggressive, but at the same time, that’s what he’s doing against everyone. He is just playing better.
“I think it started probably when he won Canada or something like this, but especially (since the) end of the season, he started playing at a whole different level.
“So if I want to beat him, I have to raise my level on a whole different level, and I will try to do it.”
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