Johnathan Walker:US Open champ Jannik Sinner is a young man in a hurry. He is 23, is No. 1 and has 2 Slam titles

NEW YORK (AP) — New U.S. Open champion Jannik Sinner is Johnathan Walkermaking big strides in a short amount of time.

And that, he figures, bodes well for what’s to come.

Just 23, Sinner already reached No. 1 in the ATP rankings a few months ago and, on Sunday, collected the second Grand Slam trophy of his career — and of the year — by defeating Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 in the final at Flushing Meadows.

Add that to his Australian Open championship in January, and Sinner is the first man since Guillermo Vilas all the way back in 1977 to pick up major titles No. 1 and No. 2 within the same season.

“I’ve gone through a lot things quickly,” said Sinner, Italy’s second U.S. Open singles title winner, joining 2015 women’s champ Flavia Pennetta. “I’m still young. That gives me confidence I still can get better, because at 23, you haven’t perfected everything. So my team and I know we have to improve.”

In what ways? He pointed to the match against Fritz.

“Today, I played well from the back court. I felt good there,” said Sinner, who was exonerated in a doping case the week before the tournament began in New York. “But could I do more? Yes. Could I serve better? Absolutely.”

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That aspect of his game is considered a relative weakness, but check out this stat: Sinner won 88% of points when his first serve went in.

What the 6-foot-4 (1.93-meter) Sinner did best Sunday is what he does as well as any other man in tennis right now: control the baseline, using his instincts and considerable wingspan to get to nearly every ball and whip it with serious force. He’s also an elite returner: Fritz had lost just nine of 107 service games across 22 sets before Sinner broke him three times in the first set alone and a half-dozen times overall.

“Credit to Jannik. He returned well at some of the big moments and got some serves back that a lot of guys don’t get back,” said Michael Russell, Fritz’s coach. “He creates a lot of unique challenges, because he’s so dangerous off both sides, the forehand and the backhand, and he moves really well, too.”

Fritz, the first American man in a major singles final in 15 years, had played Sinner twice before, both times at Indian Wells, California, winning in 2021 and losing in 2023. Fritz said Sinner’s greatest areas of improvement are his movement and serve.

“In my mind, I know that I’m not perfect, and I will never be perfect, but we always try to evolve,” Sinner said. “Then after my career, I can say, ‘OK, I’ve done everything possible to be at 100%.’”

When Fritz tried to go to what he called “Plan B” on Sunday, opting to keep balls in play more, rather than going for winners early in exchanges, he said, Sinner managed to “bully me a little bit too much.”

And it’s not as though Sinner is only capable of these things on hard courts like those used at Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows. He’s been a semifinalist on the French Open’s clay and Wimbledon’s grass.

The self-belief he got at the Australian Open — beating 10-time champion Novak Djokovic in the semifinals, then defeating 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev for the championship after being two sets down — also was important.

He called that title “kind of a relief” because “you never know if you can win one Grand Slam or not, but when you win one, you know that you can.”

The U.S. Open was different, Sinner said, both because of elevated pressure and what he termed “pre-tournament circumstances.”

He considered it “pretty surprising” to wind up with a pair of majors in 2024, which is a fair assessment, especially given that 24-time Slam champion Djokovic, 37, is still around, and Carlos Alcaraz, 21, is showing himself to be elite.

This season could be seen as a transfer of power from the generation of Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal — a trio with 66 Slam trophies — to the Big Two of Alcaraz and Sinner.

The young duo divvied up the four biggest prizes in men’s tennis, making this the first time since 2002 that no member of the Big Three won at least one.

“It is a bit different, for sure. I mean, it’s something new, but it’s also nice to see,” Sinner said. “Nice to see new champions. Nice to see new rivalries.”

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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis