After Davis Cup heroics, what might 2024 hold for a rapidly-ascending Jannik Sinner?

How best to describe the meaning of Jannik Sinner leading Italy to the Davis Cup title?

At the end of 2022, Sinner was a promising youngster ranked No. 15 in the world. He’s now soared up to No. 4, with Italy’s team triumph today an exclamation point at the close of a breakthrough year. This week in Malaga, Sinner went 5-0. But Sinner has accomplished too much in 2023 to consider his Davis Cup heroics simply an arrival moment.

Call it instead, a precipice moment. Prior Davis Cup precipice moments that come to mind are John McEnroe in 1978 and Rafael Nadal in 2004. These two prodigies also starred in the Davis Cup finals and a year later, each had won his first singles major.

What might the next 12 months hold for the rapidly-ascending Sinner?

Today, Sinner capped off Italy’s championship run with a resounding 6-3, 6-0 win over Australian Alex de Minaur. Though always confident and inspired to compete, Sinner on this last day of competition likely felt even more invigorated by having earned singles and doubles wins over Novak Djokovic just one day prior. It also helped that he’d beaten de Minaur all five times they’d previously played.

“Obviously I love to play indoors,” said Sinner. “The last tournaments of the year are usually always indoors. This helps me, no? I think I felt quite good today. Not only today but in the last month. This is a really important win for me and for the whole team and Italy together, no?”

True to his Australian heritage, de Minaur is a fantastic competitor, a first-rate mate who’ll give all he can on every point. Graced with blazing speed, all-court versatility, and a superb ability to redirect the ball, de Minaur’s grit and game have brought him to the brink of the Top 10. (He’s currently ranked No. 12.) Consider de Minaur a superb middleweight.

But Sinner is a true heavyweight, consistently able to apply exceptional pressure, with both depth and pace. And in the kind of twist that proves yet again just how pervasive Australians are in tennis, Sinner’s volleys and court presence have been greatly aided by Darren Cahill, an Aussie who also once happened to be the coach of Australia’s Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt.

Forced to absorb one concussive Sinner drive after another, de Minaur was either constantly on his heels or faced with the dilemma of having to go for a bigger shot than desired, lest he be hit off the court. In other words, call this matchup a case of bad math for de Minaur.

Speaking after the match, de Minaur said: “Jannik is riding this amazing wave of confidence. You know, he's playing in indoor conditions with some heavy balls where he can hit the absolute crap out of the ball. He's seriously impressive, the level he's showing.”

Of course, one of Davis Cup’s virtues is that success requires something rare in tennis: collaboration. Sinner’s accomplice yesterday was Lorenzo Sonego, his partner in the decisive doubles win over Serbia. Today, it was Matteo Arnaldi. In the day’s opening match, the 44th-ranked Arnaldi took on No. 40 Alexei Popyrin. Over the course of nearly two-and-a-half hours, Arnaldi fought through nerves, poor forehand patches, and frequently rock-solid play from Popyrin to earn a 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 victory.

“I think I was playing one of the most important matches of my life,” said the 22-year-old Arnaldi. Notably, in the third set, he fought off all eight break points he faced.

“I let it slip,” said the 24-year-old Popyrin, “and that's something in Davis Cup finals, it hurts.”

Said Arnaldi, “I was playing pretty bad. … At the end, it worked. I'm sorry for Alexei, because he deserved to win, for sure. He was playing better. But sometimes Davis [Cup] is like this. I had my team cheering a lot, and I think that helped a lot.”

Had Arnaldi lost, Sinner would have been in the position of having to pace Italy to a singles and doubles victory for a second straight day.  No matter who the opponent is, that’s a daunting task. Versus the perpetually-inspired Australians, a squad led by team player extraordinaire Hewitt, it might have been too much.

“We were pretty bloody close,” said Hewitt, “and I would have been pretty confident going into the doubles.”

As spiritual inspiration, showing how deeply the Aussies cherish and showcase their heritage, they made sure that Hall of Famer Tony Roche, winner of 13 Grand Slam men’s doubles titles and a Davis Cup stalwart, was on hand all week too.

But with Arnaldi putting Italy in the lead, Sinner felt far less pressure.  “We had a lot of responsibility,” said Sinner.  “But still we managed. We stand up for it. We were excited. Obviously everyone is really happy about the end result.”

“Jannik gave us a lot of things,” added Italian captain Filippo Volandri. “We don't have enough time to explain how many things he gave us, but all the guys here and the guys that are not here right now gave us a lot of things. That's why we manage, that's why we really won this trophy.”

Viewing Davis Cup success on an individual basis, MVP Sinner stands at one exciting and vivid intersection. For Davis Cup overall, though, matters are much hazier. At the end of 2018, the ITF announced a 25-year partnership with Kosmos, an investment company that led the charge to massively reform the structure of Davis Cup and also pledged to invest $3 billion in tennis. That relationship was terminated this past January.

The time for Davis Cup reform has come yet again. If moments such as Italy’s triumph revealed much that makes Davis Cup glorious, the journey along the way during the Kosmos era has hardly done this event justice. The first year of the new approach came in 2019. Naturally, bugs needed to be worked out. The onset of the global pandemic in 2020 and its aftermath did not make it easy to promote and execute an altered international sporting event.

But even as the world has become safer, it's been difficult to follow and connect with Davis Cup in its current setup.  Was it really necessary to alter and truncate the format so drastically?

The 2024 Davis Cup will remain as it’s been the last four years. It’s not clear yet how Davis Cup will look in 2025. Moving forward, I’ll toss in my two cents: Return to the 16-team World Group format, wherein nations host one another for a lively competition. Make every tie the best-of-five matches. Leave the doubles as the decider. Keep all singles matches as two-out-three sets–but make the doubles best-of-five.  And then, once the year-long competition reaches the semifinals, gather the four remaining teams in one neutral site to conclude the competition.

Certainly, the passionate tennis played by every team this final week in Malaga demonstrated yet again what can make Davis Cup so compelling. Let’s cross our fingers for a more festive and functional format.