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Jannik Sinner Highlights a Major Change After His US Open Loss to Carlos Alcaraz

Originally posted on EssentiallySports | By Vatsal Shah | Last updated Sep 27, 2025 1:18 PM ET

While Aryna Sabalenka successfully defended her crown, Jannik Sinner fell just short of doing the same as he lost out to a resurgent and relentless Carlos Alcaraz. Gone was the player who struggled to find a first serve at the Wimbledon. In fact, his serve was lethal (as was his repertoire of shots) and it was instead Sinner who struggled in his service game. When reflecting on the game, the Italian star knew that he had to change a few things if he had to have an upper hand over his rival. And what better time than to do it at the ongoing China Open?

Earlier today, Sinner took down Terence Atmane in the second round of the China Open. Although Sinner had a slip-up towards the end of the second set, dropping that set to the Frenchman, he brought his A game forward in the deciding set to seal the match. Afterward, Sinner revealed his current training a plan in his bid to be a more “unpredictable” player, as he stated after the US Open loss.

“[Machine translated from Italian] At this moment, I’m spending a lot of mental energy. Today it was 80% me and 20% new things. Maybe I should do 95% my tennis and 5% experiments. And do them in quieter moments. But there are so many positive things and it’s part of the process,” said Sinner during the post-match interview.

#Sinner a Pechino: "In questo momento spendo tante energie mentali. Oggi ero 80% io e 20% cose nuove. Magari dovrei fare 95% il mio tennis e 5% esperimenti. E farli in momenti più tranquilli. Però ci sono tante cose positive e fa parte del processo" pic.twitter.com/ozJkypU687

— SpazioTennis (@SpazioTennis) September 27, 2025

Interestingly, Sinner hasn’t been shy about pointing out the changes in his game and strategy after his 10th loss to Alcaraz. During their US Open finals clash, Sinner’s service became quite predictable, and Alcaraz exploited that weakness in Sinner’s game. However, at the China Open, Sinner has been experimenting with his new serve technique, which he had been practicing a lot in the lead-up to the tournament. Talking about this, he said, “I can say that I’m gonna become a better tennis player and I’m gonna change a couple of things on the serve, just small things, but, they can make big differences and then we see how it goes.”

Meanwhile, Sinner lost his World Number 1 crown after his loss to Alcaraz at the US Open. However, he made an interesting revelation on reclaiming that crown later this year.

Jannik Sinner is not giving up on the World Number 1 spot this year

In the live ATP rankings, Sinner is just a little less than 600 points behind Alcaraz. With some big tournaments in the form of the Shanghai Masters and the Rolex Paris Masters coming up, things could get interesting at the top. Moreover, Sinner is confident that he could reclaim his World Number 1 ranking and took a sly dig at his rival.

He said, “The season’s not over yet. We still have here. We have Shanghai, very big. We have Paris, which is very big. Turin, Davis Cup. Still big tournaments to come. Obviously the biggest, they are gone, with the Grand Slams, and we split those.”

While Sinner may be happy with the way the season has panned out for him, he isn’t done yet this year. However, he would have to be at the top of his game if he has to overtake Alcaraz at the top this year. Who do you think will end the year as the World Number 1? Let us know your views in the comments below.

This article first appeared on EssentiallySports and was syndicated with permission.

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