Jannik Sinner eyes back-to-back Australian Open titles as Alexander Zverev aims for maiden Slam

MELBOURNE – Jannik Sinner’s reserved public persona belies a mature and steely 23-year-old, who has shown mental strength to put aside a doping scandal and enter another Australian Open final.

His status as Italy’s biggest sporting star and the new dominant force in men’s tennis has only risen over the past fortnight in Melbourne.

With Spain’s golden boy and chief rival Carlos Alcaraz long gone, he has just one more hurdle to clear, against Alexander Zverev in the final on Jan 26, to become back-to-back champion.

Only three other men have managed the feat at Melbourne Park since the turn of the century – Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

Sinner has positioned himself to join them despite being dogged by controversy after twice testing positive for traces of the steroid clostebol in March 2024.

Hanging over his head is a World Anti-Doping Agency appeal against his exoneration, the global body asking for Sinner to be banned for up to two years. A hearing is scheduled at the Court of Arbitration for Sport for April. He has denied knowingly doping.

The world No. 1 has so far proved impervious to external distractions, though, and the extra weight of being defending champion.

“I’m trying to take the things away in my head, the pressure,” he said. “Even if it’s easy to say, but difficult to do. I will try to do that and also enjoy these moments. We won six very, very tough matches.”

Born in the northern Italian village of Innichen, near the Austrian border, a career in professional tennis was not a given for Sinner. He was a champion skier as a youngster and still enjoys the sport in the off-season.

He was also a keen footballer, playing for a local team as an attacker. But he decided to commit to tennis and, at age 13, moved 600km away from his family to Bordighera on the Italian Riviera to start his long march to the elite levels of the game.

After a steady grind, Sinner made an emphatic statement that he was among the elite by winning his maiden Grand Slam in Melbourne, where he overhauled Russia’s Daniil Medvedev in five sets a year ago.

He has not looked back, winning eight titles that year, including the US Open and ATP Finals, with a striking aspect – his extraordinary air of calm on court.

Quiet and reserved, he keeps his personal life away from the spotlight as much as possible, saying very little about his relationship with fellow tennis player Anna Kalinskaya of Russia.

Seen by some as too serious and even icy, he has worked to soften his image in Melbourne, even laughing during some of his interviews, a side of him rarely seen before.

Standing in his way is second seed Zverev, who has been trying for a decade to win a Grand Slam and has overcome an array of challenges to put himself on the brink of a breakthrough at the Australian Open.

The 1.98m German has been destined for the top from a young age, hailing from a tennis family where his mother and father played the sport to a high level in the former Soviet Union.

He has been through the grinder on his way to the top, living with diabetes, dealing with a serious ankle injury and having allegations that he assaulted a former girlfriend splashed across the world’s newspapers.

The court case was dropped in 2024 after a settlement was agreed hours before he was due to play in the French Open semi-finals. He strenuously denied the allegations.

Known by his nickname “Sascha”, Zverev’s greatest achievement so far is winning gold at the Covid-hit Tokyo Olympics. It was the first time a German had clinched the men’s singles title, stunning heavy favourite Djokovic before taking down Karen Khachanov of Russia in the final.

Born in Hamburg in 1997 to Russian parents, Zverev was exposed to tennis from an early age through his mother Irina and father Alexander Sr, who remains his coach. They moved to Germany after the collapse of the Soviet Union, where they began training their son.

His talent quickly became evident, winning the boys’ singles tournament at the 2014 Australian Open and becoming junior world No. 1. He broke into the senior ranks and was named the 2015 ATP Newcomer of the Year. By the time he was 20, he was in the world’s top three.

Zverev, who idolised Swiss great Federer growing up, made his first Grand Slam final in 2020 at the US Open, agonisingly losing in five sets to Austria’s Dominic Thiem after being two sets up. But his seemingly unstoppable rise was temporarily halted when he tore ankle ligaments while playing Rafael Nadal in the Roland Garros semi-finals two years later, and he underwent surgery.

Returning in January 2023, Zverev captured a 20th career title in Hamburg before the best season of his career in 2024, powering into the French Open final and surging to world No. 2, dispelling concerns that he was mentally frail.

His trajectory points towards a maiden Grand Slam.

He comes into the Melbourne Park final relatively fresh after Djokovic retired injured after losing the first set of their semi-final.

Zverev also holds a 4-2 winning record over Sinner, which includes hard-court victories at the 2021 and 2023 US Open tournaments. However, the Italian won their last hard-court match at Cincinnati in 2024, when he was virtually untouchable.

With Sinner almost unmatched for the potency and accuracy of his shot-making, Zverev’s best chance of victory may be in dragging the Italian into a long dogfight and putting his serve to work in tiebreaks.

“Again, my goal is still to compete with the big guys and to compete for these kinds of tournaments and try to win them,” said the world No. 2.

“I’m looking forward to Sunday. I do feel like I have done the work, and I do feel like I’m ready for it.” AFP, REUTERS