“It is quite fast here,” Jannik Sinner said, summing up a week’s worth of analysis and commentary from the Cincinnati Open in five short words.
Speed was indeed the defining feature and topic of this ATP and WTA 1000 event. The court surface was given a rating of 42 by the tours’ pace rating instruments, up several notches from 2023, and significantly higher than virtually every other event, including Wimbledon. More important, perhaps, Cincy won’t be an outlier in that regard this year: The courts at the US Open are reportedly playing nearly as fast. Which means that what just happened in the flatlands of Ohio could be a preview of what happens over the next few weeks in the concrete jungle of New York.
What happened in Cincy was not all that surprising, for a few reasons. Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, two of the heaviest and most aggressive hitters on their respective tours, reclaimed the spotlight and their early-season momentum after surprising mid-year dry spells. Each began 2024 by winning the Australian Open, and Sinner reached No. 1 for the first time. But neither came away with a win at Roland Garros or Wimbledon, and both had to miss the Olympics. Now, their roads have risen together again. In the span of a week, they went from having question marks about their health to becoming, possibly, the favorites to close the season the way they started it, and win the US Open.