How Has Sinner’s Game Improved So Quickly?
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22-year-old Jannik Sinner won his first Grand Slam title on Sunday, defeating Daniil Medvedev in a thrilling 5-setter, coming back from down two sets to love. Sinner handily beat 24-time Grand Slam champion and world number one Novak Djokovic in four sets in the semi-finals. Last year, Sinner only made it to the fourth round in the Australian Open. What has Sinner done to improve?
Aces and Double Faults
Let’s start with the serve. Although Sinner’s first serve percentage and first serve winning percentage did not increase from 2023 to 2024, his ability to both generate aces and avoid double faults has been refined. As seen in Figure 1 below, Sinner managed to increase his ace output from 7.3 aces per match to 8.7 aces per match, while simultaneously reducing his double faults from 3.3 per match to 2.1 per match.
More timely aces and a reduction in double faults significantly contributed to the young Italian's ability to hold his serve consistently.
Figure 1: Sinner’s aces and double faults per match in each of the 2023 and 2024 Australian Opens
Dominating the Second Serve
Sinner has shown an even more significant improvement in his second serve, achieving a 9% increase in points won on his second serve and a 6% increase in points won on his opponent's second serve compared to last year, as evident from Figure 2.
Figure 2: Sinner’s Second Serve Win % and his Opponent’s Second Serve Win % in each of the 2023 and 2024 Australian Opens
Sinner’s 57.3% of points won on his second serve is 2nd in the ATP over the past 52 weeks, trailing only Djokovic’s 57.6%. His second serve excellence has allowed him to maintain a hold percentage of 88.8%, which is also 2nd on the tour and just a tick behind Hubert Hurkacz’s 88.9%. If he can maintain a second serve win percentage anywhere near the 60% mark (still 4% lower than his magical 2024 Australian Open), Sinner projects to be the hardest tennis player to break in the world.
Now let’s turn to Sinner’s return game, focusing on his second serve returning. Sinner is crushing his opponent’s second serves now more than ever. He has led the ATP is second serve win percentage at 54.9% over the past 52 weeks, but his 58% clip in this year’s Australian Open is on another level. Sinner has ranked third on the tour with 28.9% of return games won, trailing Carlos Alcaraz (31.4%) and Medvedev (29.8%), but has the potential to be at the top of this list in 2024.
