The Italian <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/01/australian-open-the-path-of-the-italians-sinner-with-tsitsipas/" title="Australian Open, the path of the Italians: Sinner with Tsitsipas”>Jannik Sinner received the world number 1 trophy awarded each end of the season by the ATP, this Monday in Turin on the sidelines of the second day of the Masters. “It’s a very exclusive club, there have only been twenty-nine world No.1s in history. When I was a child, I never thought I would get this high, but little by little I got there by working a lot,” he said. “The most important thing is to have people around you that you feel good with and in that area I was lucky,” Sinner continued.
The Italian, winner of his first two Grand Slam titles (Australian Open and US Open) and a total of seven tournaments in 2024, had been assured since mid-October and his qualification for the Shanghai Masters 1000 final to end the year at the top of the ATP rankings.
He is the first Italian to win this trophy
The player from Alto Adige, this German-speaking region on the borders of Austria, had before the Masters more than 3,000 points ahead of his first pursuer, the German Alexander Zverev (winner of the Masters 1000 in Paris and this Monday of his first group match of the ATP Finals against Rublev, 6-4, 6-4).
The Italian, winner on Sunday of his first match of the 2024 ATP Masters against the Australian Alex De Minaur, succeeds the Serbian Novak Djokovic who finished the year eight times, a record, with the rank of world No.1.
Former German world No. 1 Boris Becker, present for this ceremony, assured that he “was not really surprised” to see Sinner at the top of the ATP rankings. “There is certainly Alcaraz and others, but Jannik is going to be world No.1 for a long time,” concluded Becker who spent 12 weeks at the top of the ATP rankings while Sinner is already at 23 weeks.
But the Italian found himself at the end of the season at the heart of a storm which could deprive him of tennis in 2025 and beyond, and which has earned him the resentment of many players. Testing positive for clostebol, an anabolic steroid, in March, he was cleared by the International Agency for Tennis Integrity (Itia), before being caught at the end of September by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) which made appeal and requests a suspension of one to two years.
