Former world No 1 says ‘Jannik Sinner didn’t necessarily impress me’ with Indian Wells Open title
Jannik Sinner won the 2026 Indian Wells Open without dropping a set, but former world No 1 Justine Henin says although he was “quite brilliant throughout the tournament”, she believes he didn’t really hit top gear at the tournament.
World No 2 Sinner beat qualifier Dalibor Svrcina, Denis Shapovalov, Joao Fonseca and Learner Tien to set up a semi-final match against Alexander Zverev with the fourth seed expected to offer a big challenge.
But the Italian came away with a dominant 6-2, 6-4 victory to reach the final and, although he was pushed hard by Daniil Medvedev, he won 7–6 (8–6), 7–6 (7–4) to lift the Indian Wells Open trophy for the first time in his career.
He notched up a few feats as he became the first man to win two consecutive ATP Masters 1000 tournaments without dropping a set as he also won the Paris Masters without any of his matches going the distance.
The 24-year-old is also the third [after Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic] and the youngest man to win all six hardcourt Masters 1000 events since 1990.
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Despite those accomplishments, seven-time Grand Slam winner Henin says she felt Sinner still had a few gears left.
“Jannik Sinner didn’t necessarily impress me, and that’s what’s actually quite worrying,” she said on Eurosport’s Winning Return.
“Seeing him win with relative ease, because you can still analyse one of the matches in which he was, fortunately, very much on the back foot.
“There was that final, of course, we saw a player [Fonseca in the third round] come along and give him a bit of a run for his money, but rewatching that final – in which he was, after all, pushed around – we might go into a bit more detail about the nature of that match and what Medvedev showed, but in the end we still had that feeling that he’s got a gear left.
“In any case, that’s what I felt when watching that final – wondering when he’s going to decide to push the accelerator a little harder.
“In fact, you could see when Medvedev started to pick up the pace; there were moments when the tempo was very high, yet he still has that ability to manage the moments, which means he manages to come out on top, particularly in the second-set tie-break; there’s no panic, you can sense no panic amongst his entourage.
“I think that in terms of management, I found him quite brilliant throughout the tournament, but in terms of play, I’ve seen him play much more convincingly before. And yet, he’s won Indian Wells for the first time in his career without dropping a single set.”
Up next is another hard-court Masters event, the Miami Open, before the attention switches to the clay-court season and Henin says he still has work to do on the surface.
The Belgian added: “He’s playing with exceptional serving quality. So there’s some pretty phenomenal timing and there’s obviously that confidence on this surface which allows him to stand out against all his rivals today on this surface. Apart from the Australian Open, where things were more complicated.
“He’s now won the Australian Open, the US Open and the six Masters 1000, so it’s time for Jannik Sinner to turn his attention to clay because he hasn’t won anything there yet.”
