At Davis Cup, it was clear how Jannik Sinner's all-time great individual 2024 has inspired his compatriots
“He never sets limits, and always wants to improve," said the rejuvenated Matteo Berrettini, who was also a key contributor in Malaga.
“It was a very difficult day today, because anything can happen,” Jannik Sinner said after beating Tallon Griekspoor to clinch Italy’s 2-0 victory in the Davis Cup Final on Sunday.
Normally, on another day and with another player, Sinner would have a point. We all know from long and sometimes-painful experience that anything can happen in sports, in tennis, and in a team competition as emotional as the Davis Cup.
The thing is, Sinner is not a normal player at the moment. If you’ve been paying any attention at all to men’s tennis in 2024—especially hard-court men’s tennis—it was highly unlikely that he was going to lose a match this important. If there was a shock involved, it was the fact that Griekspoor pushed the first set to a tiebreak.
But as he has throughout this past week in Malaga, Sinner remained the ultra-calm heartbeat at the center of Italy’s boisterous effort. Even as the country’s delirious fans and teammates roared and chanted and sang his name, the lanky, unassuming 23-year-old from snowy South Tyrol kept powering down aces and feathering in drop shots with cold tactical clarity. He played eight sets in the Davis Cup Final—six in singles, two in doubles—and won them all.
As I wrote above, few would have been surprised by Sinner’s clinical skill. This was par for the course for him as an individual in 2024, a season when he won two majors, three Masters 1000s, and finished with a 70-6 record and a runaway year-end No. 1 ranking. But what became clearer this week was the effect that his ascent has had on his countrymen and women. Success from one player in a smaller nation tends to beget success from his or her compatriots. While Italian tennis has been on the rise for a few years now, it reached a new peak in this, “the Year of the Sinner.”
On the men’s side, Lorenzo Musetti made his first Grand Slam semifinal and brought home an Olympic bronze in singles, while Flavio Cobolli, Luciano Darderi and Matteo Arnaldi made strides upward. On the women’s side, Jasmine Paolini had a beyond-breakout year at age 28, reaching her first two major finals, at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and winning Olympic doubles gold. Last week in Malaga, she led Italy to its first Billie Jean King Cup title in 11 years.
Finally, after a series of frustrating, injury-plagued seasons, it was Matteo Berrettini’s turn. At 28, his days of reaching Grand Slam finals and semis seemed like they might be behind him. He’s ranked No. 35, and every step forward over the past two years has been followed by a misstep that has sent him back to the sidelines. In 2023, Berrettini traveled to Malaga to cheer on Italy’s first Cup victory in 37 years, but at times he said he wondered, “Why did I come?”
I owe a lot to Sinner. I'm very inspired by what Jannik is doing. He never sets limits, and always wants to improve. Maybe only in a few years will we really realize this. Matteo Berrettini
He doesn’t have to ask himself that question now. Berrettini again started on the bench this week, when captain Filippo Volandri picked Musetti to play second singles in their quarterfinal with Argentina. But when Musetti came up short, Berrettini took the court with Sinner in the deciding doubles, and helped clinch an Italian win. After that, Volandri chose him for singles duty, and Berrettini delivered. First he came up clutch against Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis in a three-setter in the semis, then he mostly dominated Botic van de Zandschulp in a straight-set win in the final. By Sunday, Berrettini’s calm and clarity had begun to look suspiciously like his teammate’s.
“I owe a lot to Sinner,” Berrettini said. “I’m very inspired by what Jannik is doing. He never sets limits, and always wants to improve. Maybe only in a few years will we really realize this.”
“I once again realized how much I care about Davis Cup,” Berrettini said of his cheerleading experience in 2023. “I was like, ‘OK, next year you’re going to be here, you’re going to be fighting for Italy’.”
Of course, showing up for Davis Cup is much more fun when Sinner is on your team. His closing victory can be seen as one more changing of the guard moment in an ATP season that was filled with them. The year began with Sinner knocking 10-time Australian Open Novak Djokovic out of that tournament. Ten months later, the Davis Cup Final in Malaga opened with a farewell to another legend, Rafael Nadal, and ended with a Cup-winning performance from the young Italian.
Sinner closed his season in fitting fashion. At the start of the second set, Griekspoor loosened up and pulled off a series of circus shots that had the Dutch fans on their feet, and him looking like he might take a lead. Instead, Sinner answered with an even better series of shots of his own, and won the final four games.
“Anything can happen,” Sinner said. Not this week, not in 2024. Sinner finished the Davis Cup, and the season, the way all of us knew he would.