The 2024 season was very successful for both Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka. While both of them won many titles, they also had many achievements in common, which didn’t evade the eyes of many tennis fans recently.
Both of them grabbed 2 Grand Slam singles titles each this year, emerging as the unbeaten forces on outdoor hard courts. Though Sabalenka could not manage to become World No.1, it felt as if her season was running parallelly with Sinner’s as the co-incidences were striking.
Australian Open 2024 wins
Both Sinner and Sabalenka began their Grand Slam seasons by winning the Australian Open singles titles. While it was Sinner’s first-ever Majors win, the Belarusian won it for the 2nd consecutive time.
Sinner beat Daniil Medvedev in the final, after initially being two sets down and then winning the remaining three continuously. While Sabalenka pulled off a straight sets win against China’s Qinwen Zheng in the women’s singles final.
Missing the Paris 2024 Olympics
Sinner had to bow out of his first-ever Olympics in Paris this year after he was diagnosed with tonsillitis. It largely had to do with the injury he suffered at Wimbledon, which resulted in Medvedev taking his revenge from his loss in Melbourne in the quarterfinals in London.
Similarly, after skipping Wimbledon due to a shoulder injury, Sabalenka too skipped the Paris 2024 Olympics to recover from her injury and prepare herself for the hard-court season.
Lost quarterfinals at the Canadian Open 2024
After Wimbledon, Sinner opted to defend his title from 2023 in Canada. However, the campaign didn’t really end in the Italian’s favor as he was beaten by Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals.
Sabalenka’s 2024 Canadian Open journey too ended after she lost in the quarters to her American counterpart Amanda Anisimova.
Back-to-back Cincinnati Open and US Open 2024 wins
Things finally started falling in Sinner and Sabalenka’s favor when they triumphed at the Cincinnati Open, winning their first title of the second hard-court season of the year. Both of them were presented with American opponents as the women’s World No.2 beat Jessica Pegula while Sinner got the better of Frances Tiafoe in his final.
The duo then went on to grab their 2nd Grand Slam titles of the year by winning the US Open in the men’s singles and women’s singles categories respectively. Interestingly, both of them were presented with American opponents in the finals on that occasion too as Sinner beat Taylor Fritz while Sabalenka defeated Pegula again.
Both their 15-match winning streaks came to an end in China
After their losses in Canada, both Sabalenka and Sinner won the following 15 matches consecutively as they emerged as title winners in the next two tournaments. However, both their winning streaks came to an end at the Beijing Open 2024.
Sinner was defeated by Alcaraz in the final of the tournament while Sabalenka was ousted by the eventual finalist Karolina Muchova in the quarters.
And yet both the US Open 2024 champions have also qualified for the ATP and WTA Finals respectively. It will be interesting to see if they are able to add another achievement to their list of similarities this season by winning the year-end Championship title.
