Italian phenom Jannik Sinner cast aside doping allegations and won his second Grand Slam title of the year, beating American Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 in the U.S. Open final Sunday in New York City.
Sinner had control of the match from the beginning, but he raised his hands and dropped his head back after Fritz started to crawl his way back in the final set.
Sinner, 23, the world No. 1, sailed through the brackets seemingly unfazed by disclosures that he tested positive for an anabolic steroid this year. The revelation that he was found on March 10 to have taken clostebol cast a cloud on what should have been his coronation as one of the game’s great young stars.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency ruled that Sinner ingested the substance accidentally and opted not to suspend him.
He won this year’s Australian Open and reached the semifinals of the French Open and Wimbledon before he hoisted another trophy in Queens.
Sinner’s triumph denied Fritz, a San Diego-area native, his first major title and kept alive a two-decade-long streak of American men’s failing to win the biggest tennis tournament on U.S. soil.
The U.S. has been kept out of the men’s winner circle in Flushing since Andy Roddick defeated Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero on Sept. 7, 2003.
In the past two decades, Switzerland’s Roger Federer won it five times (2004-08), while Spain’s Rafael Nadal (2010, 2013, 2017, 2019) and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic (2011, 2015, 2018, 2023) both won four times.
One-time winners after Roddick were Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro (2009), Great Britain’s Andy Murray (2012), Croatia’s Marin Čilić (2014), Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka (2016), Austria’s Dominic Thiem (2020), Russia’s Daniil Medvedev (2021) and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz (2022).
Fritz, 26, came close to Grand Slam titles with quarterfinal appearances at Wimbledon and the French Open this year and another round-of-eight visit to Wimbledon in 2022.
Sunday’s final culminated a U.S. Open rocked by the shocking second-round upset of Alcaraz and the surprising third-round loss by Djokovic, the defending champ.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
