Jannik Sinner soars in first match of 2024, defeats Botic van de Zandschulp at Australian Open

Jannik Sinner surged through his first match of the season, easing past Botic van de Zandschulp, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the 2024 Australian Open.

Playing his first major tournament since becoming a Top 4 player, the No. 4 seed continued displaying the form that took him through a scintillating finish to his 2023 season, hitting through his powerful Dutch opponent in two hours and 34 minutes on Rod Laver Arena.

“I feel like I started off actually really well, to be honest, for the first match,” Sinner said after the match. “Then after, I had some moments where I made a couple of wrong choices, but this can happen. Even if you made maybe some matches, you know, this can happen. Maybe you are a little bit tired sometimes. Today I felt like a little bit, you know, the match feeling, it was important today, no, for me, because I was looking forward to step on the court.

“I think, to be honest, it was a positive opening match. I feel like best-of-five can help me a little bit. You stay on court a little bit longer. You get to play a little bit longer, which is what I like to do. Then we see, no, in the next rounds what's coming.”

At 22 years old, Sinner has been the story of the last six months, cementing himself as a Grand Slam contender after dominating the post-US Open swing by winning two titles and defeating Novak Djokovic en route to a runner-up finish at the Nitto ATP Finals.

Sinner defeated Djokovic for a second time to end his breakout year with a victory for Team Italy at the Davis Cup Finals, but has been off the court in the opening weeks of 2024, opting out of the Australian warm-up tournaments to ensure an optimal performance in Melbourne.

“Honestly, I missed being a little bit out of competition in the last one and a half, two months or so,” Sinner said in his pre-tournament press conference. “It's good to be back here, to have the connection with the crowd and everything. Let's see how it goes.”

Sinner showed no signs of rust in his first match against Van De Zandschulp, a former world No. 22 with a game tailor made for hard courts, having reached the US Open quarterfinals in 2021. The Italian broke serve in the opening game and repeatedly threatened a double break advantage before serving it out behind four aces and 10 total winners.

The second set went with serve for the first 10 games, with Sinner gamely serving to stay in it in the ninth with a searing backhand winner. Applying pressure to the unseeded Dutchman, Sinner engineered a pair of break points and drew an error on the second to put himself a game from the two-set lead. A forehand putaway set up two set points for Sinner, who only needed one after a volley into the open court.

Just as Sinner appeared poised to run away with the third, Van De Zandschulp capitalized on some loose shots from the Italian to reverse a 0-40 deficit and nab his first break of the match.

With his Carota Boys cheering him on, Sinner turned the tables with a phenomenal rally and reeled off the next five games, digging out of a 0-40 hole of his own to put himself two games from the second round.

Van de Zandschulp put on a brave last stand, saving two break points to snap the run of games against him, but Sinner was soon up match point, edging over the finish line after a deep return forced a forehand miss.

Standing between Sinner and a spot in the round of 32 will be either Dutch qualifier Jesper de Jong or Argentina's Pedro Cachin.

“It's Sunday today,” he said, smiling when asked about a possible semifinal against top seed Djokovic. “It's so long to go. But for sure you are aiming for these matches, for sure. But in the other way, I go day by day, to be honest. You have one job at a time. Today was one player. Wednesday is going to be a different player, and you have to try to beat this guy, no?

“I don't want to say much more about this at the moment, because I feel like that there is still a lot of work to do to get to this point. So yeah, let's see. Nobody can tell the future.”