Jannik Sinner emulates Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer with Grand Slam quarter-final feat
Jannik Sinner has joined the list of players to reach all four Grand Slams in the same calendar year after getting the better of Tommy Paul in the last 16 at the US Open.
The Italian has become the eighth player since 2000 to reach all four Grand Slams in the same year with the likes of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal leading the way.
Djokovic and Federer have achieved the feat eight times with the former doing it as recently as 2023 as he reached the final of all four majors, winning the Australian Open, French Open and US Open while he finished runner-up at Wimbledon.
Nadal has done it five times, Andy Murray four times, David Ferrer twice while Stan Wawrinka and Andre Agassi have reached this particular milestone once.
The world No 1’s 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 victory over Paul was also his 20th win at majors in 2024 as he won the Australian Open, reached the semi-final of the French Open and the quarter-final at Wimbledon.
Sinner’s only defeats at Grand Slams in 2024 have been against Carlos Alcaraz at Roland Garros and Daniil Medvedev at Wimbledon, and he will meet the latter next in what will also be a rematch of the Australian Open final.
Medvedev leads their head-to-head 5-7 while he also won their most recent encounter at Wimbledon, but Sinner has been the dominant player since 2023 as he has won five of their six encounters.
“Tough match. It’s going to be a lot of rallies, so hopefully I’ll be ready physically. It’s going to be a physical match, also a mental match,” Sinner said.
“I won in Australia, he then won in Wimbledon. That was five sets. So hopefully it’s going to be a good match. We’ll try to do our best on court, hopefully you guys enjoy the next one and then we’ll see how it goes.”
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The 23-year-old’s win over Paul was not as easy as the scoreboard suggests as he found himself 1-4 down in the first set with Paul breaking twice early on.
But he grew into the game as he won four games in a row to take it to a tie-breaker. There were no breaks of serve in the second set before Sinner edged that tie-breaker as well while he ran away with it in the third set.
“For sure mentally I didn’t start very well. I was a double break down in the first set,” he explained.
“I tried to stay there mentally and for sure this today was one of the keys to win this match,” Sinner said. “I served very well in the beginning of the match. There are some ups and downs obviously in best of five, it’s normal to have. But finding my rhythm in the end of the match hopefully helps with [it] for the next match, so let’s see.”
