Jannik Sinner won his maiden Grand Slam at the 2024 Australian Open, but according to his coach, Darren Cahill, it's only the beginning.
Sinner has been working very hard for a very long time, but it wasn't until recently that things really started to click. His first big trophy came at the Canadian Open, after which he added a trophy in Beijing as well.
He played well at the ATP Finals and led Italy to the Davis Cup trophy. All of that was pretty special, but none of it comes close to what he did in Melbourne in the past two weeks.
He made his way to the final, beating Novak Djokovic along the way. In the final match, Sinner overturned a two-set deficit to win the match and his maiden Grand Slam trophy.
He's finally and officially arrived, but not at his destination. This is only the beginning, as the real target is to get to the level of Carlos Alcarazm and even past that. That's the benchmark Cahill has for Sinner, and they're going to keep going until they catch him.
"He's a delight to watch play, and a delight to watch him on court. We aspire to be as good as him and hopefully one day be better than him, but at the moment we're chasing Carlos, and we'll continue to do that."
It's an interesting perspective from Cahill, as the Italian easily outplayed Alcaraz in the past few months. Alcaraz has been basically struggling ever since winning Wimbledon, but the Australian coach is looking at it from a big-picture perspective.
He wants Sinner to become a consistent threat at Grand Slams as well as to win ATP Masters 1000 regularly. That's what we've gotten from Alcaraz in recent years, and that's where Sinner wants to be or, ideally, overtake him.