Why Is It So Hard To Beat Jannik Sinner?

Jannik Sinner’s dominance on hard courts over the past 12 months has been incredible. His win over Alexander Zverev in the final of the Australian Open was remarkable as he did not face a single break point in the match. The Italian is on a 21-match win streak and has won 10 consecutive matches against the top 10 players without dropping a set. Sinner has joined Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Andre Agassi as the only male players to have defended a hard-court Slam this century.

When did he become this good and why is it so hard to beat him? Let’s see.

A Gradual Progress

Sinner’s progress didn’t happen overnight, he has been slowly but constantly improving over the last 3-4 years. By the end of 2021, Sinner was already a brilliant player and was ranked 10th in the world being just 20 years old. He always had exceptional ball-striking but was injury-prone, inconsistent, and had a weakness on serve.

He made some changes in his staff in 2022.  Firstly, he brought Simone Vagnozzi in February 2022 and then added Darren Cahill in June 2022. They fixed some of Sinner’s technical issues, such as serve, but continued to tinker with it later. Sinner also improved his mentality and physicality and got to his first Wimbledon semifinal quite comfortably in 2023. During 2023 after he stopped growing, he started to have a more precise physical development but there were still a lot of injuries due to his body being relatively not ready yet.

By October 2023 he had completed his physical development and had a consistent serve, good enough to face Daniil Medvedev, Carlos Alcaraz, and Novak Djokovic and started to beat them. Then, in 2024, he found himself in an ideal situation to finally put his new skills and improved game to use.

Why is it so hard to beat Jannik Sinner?

Sinner has improved every aspect of his game in the last 2-3 years, hence becoming a much better player and harder to beat. The biggest improvement is the serve (especially the first serve). Sinner used to get broken frequently, but now he holds over 90% of the time. He has also improved his endurance and confidence and believes he can defeat anyone, which is huge. He also improved strategically. In the past, he used to be super offensive. I believe that by improving his endurance he can play more patiently, making him a better player.

Another big improvement from Sinner has been his movement. He was always great when attacking but now he is as good as Djokovic or Alcaraz when in a defensive position. It has become extremely hard for opponents to hit through him. He put on muscle so he can get in and out of the corners but also not too much muscle because that adds mass.

Sinner has found a better balance in rallies between his natural aggression and consistency. Which has been the key in turning around the head-to-head with Daniil Medvedev in particular. His mentality is rock solid now. He raises his game when he’s up against it and is ruthless when he is ahead. The Italian not only hits hard but also with so much spin and margin over the net that it’s safe and heavy. His shots push the opponents back and if they start hanging back to counter the heaviness of his shots, he plays a drop shot.

His return has also improved and is right up there in the world. He gets incredible length on his returns and has quick reflexes to make returns even of fast serves. You watch his earlier matches, he made so many naive decisions and didn’t know when to play what shot. He has learned all that now. There are not many ways to beat him right now, especially on a hard court. And, as Jannik Sinner progresses, it’s reasonable to expect him to improve on other surfaces.