Jannik Sinner has been so dominant in 2024 that statisticians have to dig really deep to search for his losses.
The Italian is on one of the longest winning streaks in recent memory, soon approaching the half of Novak Djokovic's legendary 43-match winning streak. With 18 consecutive wins, Sinner may have to wait a little beat before getting into a conversation about challenging the Serbian.
When it comes to what's happening on the tennis court, he actually challenged Djokovic during his winning streak two times and won on both occasions, including the win at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Including two exhibition matches, the 22-year-old is yet to lose in 20 matches, and even Ben Shelton, who was the only player other than Djokovic to beat Sinner in the past six months, couldn't stop the world no. 3 in Indian Wells.
However, there was someone, who was able to stop Sinner in Indian Wells, even though the Australian Open champion's loss likely went unnoticed among the vast majority of the tennis fans.
While Sinner's win streak was 20 matches long, including exhibition matches, it was actually 23 matches long when considering the doubles matches, and it was in the doubles that the Italian finally found someone who could eliminate him from the tournament.
At the 2024 Indian Wells Open, he teamed up with fellow compatriot Lorenzo Sonego, and they started well in the doubles draw, beating a solid team of Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev in the opening round of the competition.
However, doubles specialists Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos proved to be too strong to overcome in the second round of the tournament, beating the Italian team 7-6(0), 6-3.
Coincidentally, it was the Spanish-Argentinian duo that handed the Italian his previous last loss in doubles, when he was outplayed together with Alex de Minaur at the China Open in Beijing last year.
Despite losing in doubles, where obviously all the blame doesn't go on him, Sinner's streak continues in singles, where he's still yet to lose since November 19, 2023, when Novak Djokovic outplayed him in the final of the 2023 ATP Finals.
The next person who will try to stop the third seed in Indian Wells will be the 32nd-seeded Czech player Jiri Lehecka, who eliminated Stefanos Tsitsipas in the previous round of the competition.
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