Business trumps ethics as Sinner’s star continues to rise at Wimbledon

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Open this photo in gallery: Jannik Sinner celebrates winning his men's singles quarter-final match against Ben Shelton at Wimbledon on Wednesday.Kirsty Wigglesworth/The Associated Press

Watching Jannik Sinner play live, you get why tennis debased itself for him.

He is the video game version of a men’s player. His precision is such that he only surprises you with his misses, never his winners.

In his quarter-final on Wednesday, the crowd on Court 1 did not want to fall for the Italian world No. 1. You could actually feel it restraining itself. They preferred his opponent, American Ben Shelton. Shelton is more outgoing, more charming and has not failed two drug tests in the last 16 months.

When Shelton did something right, they roared. Between points, they called his name. But whenever Sinner popped the chalk with his backhand, they would emit a low groan of admiration. You don’t need to be an aesthete of the game to know that this is what greatness looks like.

Shelton was excellent and never had a chance. Sinner ground him to dust in just over two hours, 7-6, 6-4, 6-4. He will face Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals on Friday.

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Speaking of Sinner’s ugdray uspensionsay is no longer considered polite, but the BBC’s on-court interviewer Lee McKenzie made a cheeky gesture in that direction. Sinner last made the Wimbledon semis in 2023.

“How do you think you’ve changed over these last couple of years?” McKenzie wondered.

The fun answer would have been, “Personally or metabolically?”

But Sinner didn’t flinch: “When you are young … one year, it makes such a difference.”

This guy makes Roger Federer look jittery.

Open this photo in gallery: Once Novak Djokovic leaves tennis, Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz will inherit his kingdom as the top two stars in the men's circuit.Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

One can still debate whether or not Sinner is a drug cheat. He claims he is not. There’s a whole story about a physio who got into a cream he should not have been touching, then inadvertently transferred it in a small dose to his unwitting client.

What’s not at issue is that, through WADA, tennis cleared the path for Sinner. Rather than go the distance in prosecuting him, they agreed to let him serve a three-month suspension squeezed between majors. “A small break,” is how Sinner has referred to it.

Would they have done this for the 100th ranked player in the world? Obviously not. They’d have put that guy through the wringer so hard that he’d have come out the other side without a drop of moisture left in his body.

But Sinner was a special case. Tennis already had its generational superstar – Carlos Alcaraz. What it lacked was his foil.

Where Alcaraz is hot, Sinner is chilly. Where Alcaraz pulls people in, Sinner eases them away. He is Bjorn Borg, minus the sweater sets. He will occasionally give you a small fist pump, but it never reaches his eyes.

Asked once to pick which of his colleagues has the best post-match celebration, Sinner said, “Not me, that’s for sure.”

For years, tennis had struggled to find even one men’s player who could be reliably good. That’s why Federer and Rafael Nadal lasted so long – there was no one to take the wheel. Sinner is the total opposite of Alcaraz in every way but one – they’re both closers.

Sinner erupted right after Alcaraz had taken off. Just as it was stepping off into the unknown, the game had its new Federer-Nadal.

Not yet, obviously. Alcaraz hasn’t had his quarter-life glow up, and Sinner hasn’t learned how to mimic a sense of humour, but all that will happen. Even Federer and Nadal weren’t the Federer and Nadal you’re picturing until a few years into their rivalry.

And then this silly drug thing.

From a sporting perspective, the right thing to do was obvious – stick with the rules as written. But Alcaraz and Sinner aren’t playing a sport.

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Tennis is a sport when you play it. When they do it, it’s a business. Sinner was being sized up for the top job in that firm.

So I get it. The people in charge didn’t want to dirty up Sinner’s rep any more than was absolutely necessary. I’m sure that if his sponsors and the top brass at the ATP knew where WADA kept the samples, they’ve have all bought Gucci balaclavas and taken care of it themselves. Instead, they let the system fix it.

This was made easier by the fact that they could feel pretty sure Sinner wouldn’t blow it for them. It’s no use giving a free pass to a guy who’s going to act the fool once people start asking him about it.

Sinner handled his end beautifully. He didn’t apologize because he’d never admitted doing anything wrong, but nor was he defiant. He treated this whole mess like a missed date. He’d said he would be there, but couldn’t. Mi scusi.

Winning the Australian Open just before his temporary exile was good. It reminded people why they’d gone to all the trouble. Letting Alcaraz come back on him in the French Open in his first big event back was an inspired stroke.

“It is easier to play than talking now,” he said immediately after losing that classic final.

If anyone was still inclined to be sore at Sinner, it was getting harder. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

Here at Wimbledon, people would like Alcaraz, the human equivalent of a Golden Retriever, to win, but they would also like to see him pay for it against Sinner.

With apologies to the fourth semi-finalist, Taylor Fritz, the major impediment to that best-case scenario is the Ghost of Majors Past, Djokovic. The Serb struggled through another Italian, Flavio Cobolli, on Wednesday evening.

A couple of days ago, Djokovic was asked if he is the only player still capable of beating either of Sinner or Alcaraz at a slam.

The condensed version of his answer was no, but this tournament is his best chance to win another major. That’s the closest the winningest player of all time has ever come to waving a white flag.

Whenever Djokovic goes, Sinner and Alcaraz co-inherit his kingdom. Could their personal battle last as long as their predecessors’? That could be 15 years of must-see live TV. Sixty, 70 majors.

When you think of the return that might be reaped from that, the value of ethics start to shrink into nothingness.

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