A dirty Sinner or a Jannik high on clay? How many clay titles will Jannik Sinner win in his career?

[dking68]

Possibly, but I think Alcaraz and Rune have shown more on the surface so far. And obviously Djokovic and Nadal are going to be factors.

I don’t really see this guy having a big career but to each his own. I just think his forehand isn’t good enough to be a serious contender for majors. He’s like the Murray in relation to Alcaraz and Sinner

 

[dking68]

@Kralingen hope he proves me wrong but I’m not getting an ATG vybes from Rune. I see more talent in Sinner, yes even on clay. What I saw in Roland Garros 2022 was shocking and to this very day it’s the best I’ve ever seen Jannik play. Rublev was hopeless

 

[tudwell]

It's hard to put much stock in his 2023 stats. He barely did anything at Barcelona, Rome, or especially Roland Garros. On the other hand, he's a young, improving player so I wouldn't expect his stats to regress back to his career average, either, and we've seen those improved stats pay off indoors, so it's possible the same happens on clay.

But I also think it'll be his weakest surface. He's just not as good a mover as Nadal, Djokovic, or Alcaraz. He's so strong in the fundamentals of the game that I think he can translate his play, Agassi-style, to any surface or condition, but I don't think he'll ever be a dominant clay courter. Just one among the top pack – which is still a great place to be. Plus he doesn't seem interested in playing lots of small clay court tournaments, especially outside the primary European clay swing, so that'll limit how many titles he can rack up.

For perspective, Djokovic is sitting on 19 titles after almost 20 years of playing on the tour. He had Nadal standing in his way for basically that entire time, which Sinner won't, but for Sinner to better Novak's numbers and go 20+ he'd still have to be close to Novak-caliber on the surface, and with his less-than-all-time-great speed and generally higher-risk play style, I don't know if I see that happening.

 

[dking68]

It's hard to put much stock in his 2023 stats. He barely did anything at Barcelona, Rome, or especially Roland Garros. On the other hand, he's a young, improving player so I wouldn't expect his stats to regress back to his career average, either, and we've seen those improved stats pay off indoors, so it's possible the same happens on clay.

But I also think it'll be his weakest surface. He's just not as good a mover as Nadal, Djokovic, or Alcaraz. He's so strong in the fundamentals of the game that I think he can translate his play, Agassi-style, to any surface or condition, but I don't think he'll ever be a dominant clay courter. Just one among the top pack – which is still a great place to be. Plus he doesn't seem interested in playing lots of small clay court tournaments, especially outside the primary European clay swing, so that'll limit how many titles he can rack up.

For perspective, Djokovic is sitting on 19 titles after almost 20 years of playing on the tour. He had Nadal standing in his way for basically that entire time, which Sinner won't, but for Sinner to better Novak's numbers and go 20+ he'd still have to be close to Novak-caliber on the surface, and with his less-than-all-time-great speed and generally higher-risk play style, I don't know if I see that happening.

I went with 13-16. I don’t see him achieving Novak’s results on clay either. But he will win a few Rome titles for sure. But he’s massively underrated on clay. He demolished Alcaraz in that Umag final, 1 and 1 in the second and third

 

[Dwell]

I went with 13-16. I don’t see him achieving Novak’s results on clay either. But he will win a few Rome titles for sure. But he’s massively underrated on clay. He demolished Alcaraz in that Umag final, 1 and 1 in the second and third

How Rune retools his forehand in the next few years will pretty much determine the rest of his career. Boris might go down as the GOAT coach if he pulls this off.

 

[Rovesciarete]

It's hard to put much stock in his 2023 stats. He barely did anything at Barcelona, Rome, or especially Roland Garros. On the other hand, he's a young, improving player so I wouldn't expect his stats to regress back to his career average, either, and we've seen those improved stats pay off indoors, so it's possible the same happens on clay.

Agreed, small sample size against not exactly the cream of the crop. Makes it difficult even if the stats improved across the board.

But I also think it'll be his weakest surface. He's just not as good a mover as Nadal, Djokovic, or Alcaraz. He's so strong in the fundamentals of the game that I think he can translate his play, Agassi-style, to any surface or condition, but I don't think he'll ever be a dominant clay courter. Just one among the top pack – which is still a great place to be. Plus he doesn't seem interested in playing lots of small clay court tournaments, especially outside the primary European clay swing, so that'll limit how many titles he can rack up.

He is a lesser mover on clay than those three but he is also at least 5cm taller which always looks slower. I think he has better clay fundamentals than the great Agassi which says a lot. This surface favours heavy weight of shot and who can deliver more from both wings?

For perspective, Djokovic is sitting on 19 titles after almost 20 years of playing on the tour. He had Nadal standing in his way for basically that entire time, which Sinner won't, but for Sinner to better Novak's numbers and go 20+ he'd still have to be close to Novak-caliber on the surface, and with his less-than-all-time-great speed and generally higher-risk play style, I don't know if I see that happening.

In my humble opinion Rafa was just a mountain for anybody on clay. I mean 62 titles are just so incredible. Alcaraz can play amazingly well so he should make life very difficult for twelve years or more. I have huge respect for Claykovic, which is an all-time great there but I would argue that it was his least natural surface. Stroke-wise Jannik seems more at home there even if his movement is not.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Carlitos drop a little but it is good to see the highlights of Umag again. Janni with so much natural weight of shot, causing big problems to the greatest clay talent of the last fifteen+ years. His serve was clearly less effective just like his movement was a bit clunkier. Still some nice gets, droppers and volleys. The smash is statistically in the Nole department.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Maybe even more instructive are the highlights of the loss against Rune after the rain pause. Jannik dominated the first set with some beautiful striking but could no longer do so once rain and dusk made the slowest conditions even more so.

Rune dropped back more, varied smartly, mixed in a lot of spin with some great returns and won narrowly. Interestingly this loss produced some of the greatest point highlights for Sinner, with some amazing reflexes and net play. There was some lack of adjustment by Jannik despite the rain pause, which causes reflection.

Overall the conditions were basically the extreme opposite of the Turin match which shows that both will do well over their career.

P.S: The backhand was great back then but nowadays Jannik has a bigger hitbox to deal with the incoming low balls. This allows him to deliver down the line and at an angle with more margin.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Just wanted to allow other posters to get their votes in. So far I have seen no reason why he shouldn't win plenty on clay, but we will see.

The olympic games will now a bigger target considering he got now the happy slam.

 

[FeroBango]

All I know is that Sinner is being overlooked as a force on clay. He's too good for his heavy shots to not be a factor moving forward.

 

[ppma]

Since Medvedev won Rome anything can happen. Plus, I think Sinner's ball striking is good for clay, even though he isn't made for the clay kind of game.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Let us look at the clay raw and combined Elo after the Happy Slam. The latter has the greater predictive power so I will sort the top 10 that way:

Rank​	Player​	Age​	Elo​	​	HardRaw​	ClayRaw​	GrassRaw​	​	hElo​	cElo​	gElo​	​	Peak Age​	Peak Elo​
3​	Carlos Alcaraz​	20.6​	2139.0​	​	1976.8​	2039.0​	1909.3​	​	2057.9​	2089.0​	2024.2​	​	20.2​	2239.7​
2​	Novak Djokovic​	36.6​	2216.1​	​	2119.2​	1960.1​	1898.1​	​	2167.6​	2088.1​	2057.1​	​	28.8​	2470.3​
1​	Jannik Sinner​	22.4​	2234.6​	​	2164.3​	1913.5​	1733.0​	​	2199.4​	2074.1​	1983.8​	​	22.4​	2234.6​
10​	Stefanos Tsitsipas​	25.4​	1968.0​	​	1872.0​	2005.1​	1650.8​	​	1920.0​	1986.6​	1809.4​	​	22.8​	2133.4​
4​	Daniil Medvedev​	27.9​	2122.6​	​	2045.7​	1850.0​	1751.2​	​	2084.1​	1986.3​	1936.9​	​	25.9​	2191.9​
5​	Alexander Zverev​	26.7​	2054.8​	​	1939.8​	1917.9​	1619.4​	​	1997.3​	1986.3​	1837.1​	​	24.7​	2161.7​
6​	Andrey Rublev​	26.2​	2048.1​	​	1945.0​	1918.9​	1757.6​	​	1996.5​	1983.5​	1902.9​	​	23.4​	2106.2​
14​	Casper Ruud​	25.0​	1917.2​	​	1769.7​	1940.5​	1412.8​	​	1843.4​	1928.9​	1665.0​	​	23.4​	2064.0​
12​	Holger Rune​	20.7​	1940.3​	​	1804.2​	1897.3​	1631.9​	​	1872.3​	1918.8​	1786.1​	​	20.0​	2070.1​
7​	Grigor Dimitrov​	32.6​	2023.8​	​	1903.5​	1802.7​	1611.6​	​	1963.6​	1913.2​	1817.7​	​	23.2​	2090.6​

Apart from the King of Clay in exile it fairly reflects who has the biggest chances on the dirt. I would rank Sascha and Casper ahead of Daniil. Rune is another tough case, deep lows and high peaks. Carlos, Novak and Jannik are all very close, only fifteen points apart while there is a big gap of almost a hundred* between them and the quartet.

*Means that the leader is twice as likely to win

 

[Rovesciarete]

Rune vs Medvedev was an interesting re-read:

But as we know Rune is often content—especially in big moments—to counterpunch. Again from the Paris Masters piece:

“It was interesting to watch Djokovic face a guy who was willing to blend aggression with a stubborn refusal to miss in big moments. Most players sort of entrench themselves in one style more (Medvedev counterpunches very well, but lacks the slice/drop shots/and aggressive ability to expose a deep position, Kyrgios serves and comes forward well, but lacks the defense to hang on in big points, etc.) and this makes it very hard to beat Djokovic, because his corner defense is so good. You have to be able to push him back, but also threaten the forecourt. Djokovic makes you have to find a lot of real estate (i.e., angles, drop shots) to win points. And that real estate is harder to find when the pressure is on. Trying to hang with him in big points usually just favours him even more.”

Rune has some lovely strokes, I give him that and his long term coach Lars Christensen. Those are excellent foundations to build upon, and he does try out a lot of things. Quite interesting to look back at it when Sinner came out calmly dispatching almost all top5 opposition with a mix of aggression and patience.

Rune sits in contrast to Sinner and Alcaraz, the other two young guns set on taking over from the Big-3, but those two are so clearly offensive and seem entrenched in that style. Their matches are like the Federer/Agassi clip from above: blazing pace from close quarters. I haven’t seen them sample the patient counterpuncher too much (although at times Alcaraz looked patient on the backhand against Medvedev in Indian Wells, you can see that he’s constantly looking for that ball he can crunch). Now does Rune look a little manufactured off the ground compared to those two? I think he does. But the product is simple and I think for that reason alone any obstacles can be navigated.

So Rune has likely more stable strokes while Sinner has thanks to more spin more margins on the trajectory and a steadier head to pull it off. It will be very interesting to see how the clay season will work out.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Clay season is ahead and tennis paradise has the dirtiest hardcourt a Sinner can play on. It increases the importance of the forehand and the value of topspin. However what about the backhand?

Miami

And here the 52 week averages, 03/08/2024.

 

[dking68]

@Rovesciarete clay masters for Sinner?

 

[Rovesciarete]

@Rovesciarete clay masters for Sinner?

Monte Carlo is usually very slow and Sinner will have the least time to acclimatise. However it is should be rather warm with little rain expected for the first week so condition should suit him a bit more. Very likely that he will also be scheduled for evening prime time, so a warm dry day is helpful too. No clay specialists for the first two rounds would be nice, as well as having Alcaraz on the other side of the draw.

Pollen might be the big unknown.