World No. 1 will play in US Open final, seeking second major title

World No. 1 Jannik Sinner will have a chance to sweep the hard court majors in 2024. 

The 23-year-old Italian, who broke through at this year’s Australian Open for his first Grand Slam title, advanced to Sunday’s U.S. Open final with a 7-5, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 victory over No. 25 Jack Draper in Friday’s semifinals. Sinner will meet American Taylor Fritz for the title.

On a strange afternoon at Arthur Ashe Stadium where Sinner didn’t play his best and Draper struggled with the New York humidity — constantly having to wipe sweat puddles off the court and vomiting twice during the match — each of the first two sets were up for grabs toward the end. 

And it was Sinner using his big match experience to play solid under pressure while Draper struggled to execute when he had chances to grab the lead. 

Sinner, however, wasn’t without issues. Toward the end of the second set he appeared to hurt his left wrist while trying to protect himself from a fall. Sinner was able to continue and play effectively, but frequently had to shake out his left hand. 

That could potentially be a factor in Sunday’s final, where Sinner will be favored against No. 12 Fritz, who knocked off fellow American Frances Tiafoe, the No. 20 seed, in five sets.

The semifinal stage was entirely new for Draper, a 22-year-old lefty from Great Britain who has been threatening to join the ranks of Grand Slam contenders but has struggled with the physicality of playing best-of-five matches — much like Sinner before this year. 

Though Draper has made strides in his fitness and endurance since joining the ATP Tour, the stress of playing in his first major semifinal brought some of those issues back to the surface. Despite reasonable temperatures in the mid-70s, Draper was sweating profusely almost from the beginning of the match. He struggled to maintain a dry grip on his racket and at one point even needed to change shoes in the middle of a game. In the second set, his stomach was so unsettled that he threw up on the court. 

Still, he managed to test Sinner and keep the score close for awhile even though Sinner pressured him in several service games. When Sinner finally broke to take a 4-2 lead in the third set, Draper was clearly out of gas and hunched over in the corner trying to recover for the final few games of the match. 

Sinner, whose fitness was also a question mark until he won the Australian Open, will play in his second career major final. He is 5-0 overall in finals this year, including Masters 1000 titles in Miami and Cincinnati. 

A few days before the U.S. Open began, the International Tennis Integrity Agency announced the shocking revelation that Sinner had tested positive in March for traces of the banned substance clostebol but was allowed to continue playing during his provisional suspension and appeal. 

On Aug. 20, the ITIA ruled that Sinner was not at fault for the positive test. Sinner claimed that the substance entered his system due to spray that his fitness trainer had used to treat a cut on his finger. The trainer then did work on Sinner without gloves, allegedly causing the positive test. In Italy, the spray that contains clostebol is widely available over the counter. 

A number of current and former players have raised concerns that Sinner received favorable treatment because he was allowed to continue playing, but Sinner has said that the difference in his case was that he and his team were quickly able to present evidence about his trainer using the banned spray. 

Follow Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken