There was one moment in each set when the match could have swung away from Sinner. At 3-3 in the first, he went down a break point, but saved it with a bravely angled forehand that Fritz couldn’t return. In the second set, again at 3-3, Sinner went down 0-30 on his serve. Again he extricated himself with some brave play: He won one point with a forehand drop shot winner, and another with a brilliant backhand pass. After that pass, Sinner cupped his hand to his hear to ask for more noise from the Turin crowd, while Fritz raised his arms in tantrum-like frustration. What did he have to do to win a big point?
“I read a little bit where he was playing,” Sinner said in his customarily modest, matter-of-fact way. “I just tried to pass him somehow.”
“If he breaks me there, the momentum could change.”
In the end, the match was a microcosm of both men’s seasons.
Fritz has worked hard to move into the Top 10, and now nearly into the Top 5, and to go deeper at the biggest non-clay events. But whether it’s in the form of Novak Djokovic, who beat him at the Australian Open, or Sinner, who beat him at the US Open, he has bumped up against a ceiling in the end. With a 1-1 record this week, he still has a chance to crack it in Turin.
We can see now that Sinner won’t be easy to shatter. He’s at home, he’s 2-0, and he has been close to invincible on hard courts for 13 months now. As he showed against Fritz, Sinner can take his opponent’s top gear, and find a higher one.
