Jannik Sinner of Italy poses with Norman Brookes Challenge Cup the morning after defeating Alexander Zverev of Germany in the men’s singles final at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
The dominance of Novak Djokovic still looms on the Grand Slams, though a hamstring injury might’ve pushed him to a mid-game retirement at the Australian Open. But in describing the challenge to overcome Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev compared the second-time winner to AO’s nine-time former champ, the Serbian.
Sinner was suitably flattered. “It’s an amazing compliment from Sascha,” Sinner told the press conference, adding that Djokovic was still dreaded as was evident in his beating of Carlos Alcaraz. “I think everyone is different in a way. Obviously I have some similarities with Novak’s game style. I still believe when Novak plays at his best, it’s very, very, very tough to beat him.”
But the same steely resolve was witnessed on the big points painting both of them to be mentality monsters. “But game style-wise I looked up to him, trying to understand what he’s doing, how he handles the pressure moments, and important moments. I still believe we are different as players because everyone is different, but for sure we have similarities. The similarities are having a quite clean ball striking from the baseline, having a good movement, understanding a little bit where your opponent plays the ball,” said the Italian after winning his 19th tour-level title, and 37th of his past 38 matches.
In drawing differences between his first and second AO titles, Sinner said, “What I understood this time is every day is different. You have days where you might not feel 100 per cent and then the next match all of a sudden, ‘Okay, I’m into the tournament’. I think I’ve learned many things throughout this one year, not all about the result, but how I am as a person and how I handle the situations on the court.”
Dropping just two sets en route to the title, the Italian had struggled against Holger Rune but seen off Alex de Minaur in the quarter-finals, and Ben Shelton in the semis before Zverev in the final to bloat up his record to a chunky 22-4 at the Melbourne hard-court major.
Sinner seemed pleased in the post match conference saying, “It was an amazing performance from my side. I felt like I was in the beginning of the match serving really well and trying to get into the zone very fast. It was very high-quality from my side. In the second set, I got a bit lucky in the tie-break, as we saw. All things considered, [it was an] amazing run again here in Australia. I’m extremely happy. Sharing this with the team here and family and the people I love, it’s amazing.”
The 23-year-old praised the work of his coaches Aussie Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi in making him the player to beat on Tour.
“He’s a very honest, honest person,” Sinner said on Cahill. “To be a good coach with many different players, you have to understand the player and you have to get into the rhythm of the player, what he likes, what he doesn’t like. It takes him just some weeks to get into that, and then he’s there. One thing I really love about him is because he’s very, very humble. He fits into the team very, very well. I tried also to make a good result for him here because being Australian, last Grand Slam as a coach. But I have to say we talk a lot about Darren, but it’s also the Simone part, which is amazing what he’s doing. He changed me as a player. He gave me so much confidence that I can do different stuff.”
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