Jannik Sinner wins his first Grand Slam in Australia.
As Jannik Sinner trailed by two sets in his first grand slam final, his hopes of attaining the ultimate dream were fading quickly. He looked completely lost. Between points he shared long, searching looks with his team. At one point, he even told them that he was “dead”. Sinner’s inexperience sharply contrasted with the nous of Daniil Medvedev, who seemed to know exactly what to do.
But Sinner dug far deeper than ever before, and somehow he gradually managed to turn his fortunes around.
From the grim prospect of likely defeat, the 22-year-old fourth seed pulled off the greatest comeback of his life to topple Medvedev 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 and win his first grand slam title.
“It takes a little while to process everything,” Sinner said. “I’m extremely happy how I handled things today. The situation on court was very, very tough. I think the most important part was the support I had throughout these two weeks. I felt that many, many people were watching also from home, so I just tried my best. I was a little bit in trouble today with two sets to love down and in a little bit over one hour. So I just tried to stay positive.”
With his immense victory, Sinner is just the third Italian man to win a grand slam title and the first since Adriano Panatta in 1976. At 22 years and 165 days, he is also the youngest man to win the Australian Open since Novak Djokovic in 2008 and the second man born in the 2000s to win a grand slam title after Carlos Alcaraz. It is a reflection of the dominance of the Big Three, and how they have snuffed out the dreams of an entire generation, that there are also only two men born in the 1990s with a grand slam title.