2024 ATP Player of the Year Countdown, No. 1: Jannik Sinner

2024, by the Numbers

• 73-6: Overall win-loss record
• 23-2: Grand Slam win-loss record (AO 🏆, RG SF, W QF, USO 🏆)
• 8: Titles (Australian Open, Rotterdam, Miami, Halle, Cincinnati, US Open, Shanghai, ATP Finals)
• 1: Runner-ups (Beijing)
• 1: Year-end ranking

The Story of the Season

Even in his wildest dreams, Jannik Sinner could not have anticipated that 2024 would not only boost him to the No. 1 ranking by mid-year, it would also evolve into one of the greatest single seasons in history.

Sinner’s 73-6 record, underscored by two Grand Slam titles and a triumph at the ATP Finals also featured three Masters 1000 titles and a score of stats that strain credulity (not a single 2024 loss in straight sets).

Sinner shifted into high gear and rarely took his foot off the gas. He won his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, then streaked into the BNP Paribas Open semifinals, where he absorbed a loss to potential career-rival Carlos Alcaraz. The only glitch in his spring—and it’s a significant one—was a complicated doping controversy, the outcome of which is yet to be determined.

Undeterred by the controversy, the generally amiable and compliant 23-year old from Innichen went on another tear, halted on clay in the Monte Carlo semifinals by the No. 12 seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas. That loss, to a multiple Grand Slam singles finalist, was (in reality as well as on paper) the worst of just six defeats in Sinner’s 2024.

Sinner took late-tournament losses at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, but he flourished again on hard courts. At the US Open, he became just the third man in the Open era to win his first two Grand Slam titles in the same year (none of the others were named Alcaraz, Federer, Djokovic or Nadal). Sinner closed his campaign—which would feature eight titles, a 73-6 record (for a 92 percent single-season winning percentage, ninth best of the Open Era) and a Davis Cup success - on a 14-match winning streak during which he lost just one set. He will carry a 26-set winning streak into the new year.

Any questions?—Pete Bodo

What’s to Come in 2025?

Is it realistic to think that a player can improve on a season in which he won two majors, three Masters 1000s, and the ATP Finals; led his country to the Davis Cup; and finished 4,000 points ahead of the rest of the ATP field?

In Sinner’s case, the answer is yes.

At 23, he’s entering his prime, and there are three obvious places where he can improve in 2025.

First, he can make sure his training team takes the precautions necessary to keep all banned substances out of his system. His two failed tests in March distracted him for months, and may have contributed to his losses at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

Second, he can focus on his clay-court game. Of Sinner’s eight titles in 2024, none came on dirt. His baseline attack, which gets more relentless by the month, is clearly built for hard courts. But clay will never be foreign to an Italian, and he made the semifinals at Roland Garros last year. There’s no reason, if he’s less distracted, he can’t challenge for that title, or add a clay Masters to his resumé.

Third, Sinner can put together a new game plan for Carlos Alcaraz, who was 3-0 against him in 2024. All three of those matches went the distance, before Alcaraz raised his level at the end. I wouldn’t bet on the often-erratic Spaniard doing that in 2025. Instead, I’d bet on Sinner being extra motivated not to let it happen again.— Steve Tignor