Jannik Sinner - liberation in Umag
Jannik Sinner celebrated his first title of the 2022 season with an impressive performance in the final of the ATP 250 event in Umag. In view of an extremely tough first half of the season, a particularly important title win for the Italian.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Aug 01, 2022, 12:05 pm
There are two main reasons why Jannik Sinner was overshadowed by Carlos Alcaraz for long stretches of spring 2022: On the one hand, the Spaniard had an impressive start to the season, winning titles at ATP Masters 1000 level and victories over Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal (in the same tournament!) included. On the other hand, this circumstance was also due to the fact that Jannik Sinner did not want to come together much at the start of the year.
This in turn was due in no small part to the fact that Sinner had to struggle with physical complaints for long stretches of the first half of the season. The inglorious highlight: the task in the round of 16 duel with Andrey Rublev at the French Open. So Sinner, who was already able to win five career titles at the tender age of 20, had to be patient for a fairly long time until the first in the calendar year 2022 - and thus number six - moved to the credit side.
Sinner is already looking to North America
After winning the final over Carlos Alcaraz, it was clear to see that winning the title let some of the burden off the South Tyrolean's shoulders: "I'm incredibly happy. I've had a tough year so far. We've had unfortunate moments, but we kept working hard and I believed in myself to play better and improve as a tennis player," explained Sinner during the award ceremony. "I'm very happy to finally be able to lift a trophy this year."
However, Sinner doesn't have much time to celebrate, in just a week's time the ATP Masters 1000 event in Montreal will be another highlight of the season - and that too on hard court and not on clay court. "I know that I have to improve some aspects. Now it's time to make these adjustments to go to Montreal well prepared. Everything is geared towards the process," said Sinner. "We hope we can do our best in the United States. There isn't much time and we have a lot of work to do."
Sinner beats Alcaraz for the second time
It is the second victory for Jannik Sinner against opponent Carlos Alcaraz within a few days - the South Tyrolean only remained victorious after a strong performance in the round of 16 at Wimbledon. Sinner then had only words of praise for his opponent, who was a good one and a half years his junior: "Carlos, you improve every week, in every tournament you play. You've already shown amazing things this year and I'm sure that you'll do it too will play at a high level on the US tour."
Jannik Sinner can also be trusted to do this, who - if fit - has repeatedly shown great performances. As in the first two sets in the quarter-final duel with Novak Djokovic in Wimbledon, which the 20-year-old won. Or most recently in the Umag final against Carlos Alcaraz, in which Sinner only conceded two more wins to his opponent after losing the opening set. Slowly but surely, Sinner is rising out of the Spaniard's shadow.