John McEnroe offered a clear appraisal of Jannik Sinner’s progress and the role of his coach after a season that has combined major success with off-court controversy. McEnroe praised the Italian’s recent form and highlighted the impact Darren Cahill has had since joining Sinner’s team.

Sinner arrives at the 2025 US Open as the favourite and reigning champion after winning his first New York title last year. Now world No 1, he is chasing a fourth straight hard-court major and a fifth Grand Slam overall. He also captured his first major on natural grass at Wimbledon last month, defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final.

Sinner missed early-season Masters 1000 events following a suspension that ran from February 9 to May 4 this year, imposed after two failed doping tests in March 2024. He returned to competition at the Italian Open and has remained one of the sport’s most closely watched figures.

Speaking on ESPN, McEnroe singled out Sinner’s coaching changes and early development. “I know his original coach when he was a kid, Riccardo Piatti, who did a great job with him,” said the former world No 1.

“But he felt like he needed something more, just like Coco [Gauff] has decided to get a new coach. Darren Cahill is one of the greatest coaches that you will ever see in any sport, he should be in the Hall of Fame.

“He coached [Andre] Agassi, Simona Halep, Lleyton Hewitt. He has done a number with Jannik Sinner, made him more of a believer, changed his serve.”

McEnroe admitted he had been surprised by how quickly Sinner’s game has matured. “He is incredible in and out of the corners,” continued the American.

“Sinner is playing at a level that I did not anticipate would be that high at this point in his career. I am very amazed that he is this good. I have watched him for years, he is a great kid.

“He went through a lot of turmoil with these doping violations, I don’t know exactly what has happened in terms of what went on, but the bottom line is that there was a lot of pressure here [at the US Open] when he played [in 2024].

“He handled that, he went to Australia and it was revisited. He handled that great.

“He got three months, maybe that could have helped him a little bit to regroup, but all in all, he has been a huge plus for our game.”

A little after 11:30 on Thursday night, Tommy Paul reached double match point against Nuno Borges. Fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium rose and raised their Honey Deuces, expecting another late American victory after Coco Gauff’s earlier triumph. Borges, the 41st-ranked Portuguese, erased both match points with two first serves and pulled the match back to even.

What followed was a relentless encounter that stretched to five sets and 4 hours 25 minutes. Time and again Paul built leads and looked ready to finish; time and again Borges answered. The crowd that had come for a decisive American win instead settled into long stretches of nervous silence and thin, echoing cries from the rafters. Late in the fourth set Paul’s coach Brad Stine told him to “stop acting like a baby.”

Borges’s game is not flashy, but it was unnervingly effective on the night. His lone career title came on clay, when he beat an aging Rafael Nadal in the Spaniard’s last tour final, but the Portuguese thrived on the quick hard court and the pace Paul supplied. Borges approached the net 20 more times than Paul and won 69 percent of those points.

The match produced two clear peaks. The first came late in the fifth when Borges angled a sprinted-for short ball a few inches from the net, only for Paul to scramble forward and win the point. The second came more than two hours after Paul’s first match point, when a sequence of volleys and a furious forehand pass finally ended with Borges’ volley popping up on his side of the net.

Paul prevailed, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 5-7, 5-7, 7-5, at 1:46 A.M. Both players fought through exhaustion and the threat of cramps to reach the finish.

“I’m a little bit tired, I think we all are,” Paul said a few minutes later, as Borges walked off in his socks. “Thank you guys so much for staying so late in the night and supporting me. I don’t know if I would have got that win without you guys.”

“Especially when you’re up two sets to love, you never wanna lose a match like that.”

Holger Rune accepted the limits of his US Open campaign after a five-set defeat to Jan-Lennard Struff in the second round in New York and offered a stark assessment of who can challenge the current Grand Slam leaders. Rune backed Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic as the only players apart from Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz capable of lifting the 2025 US Open trophy.

“It’s just hard to win Grand Slam tournaments,” admitted the Dane, after his US Open loss. “Now it will probably be another final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Apart from them, it is probably only Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev who can win.”

Rune’s comments came amid a stretch in which Sinner and Alcaraz have taken all seven of the most recent majors, meeting in the finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Sinner was the champion at last year’s US Open, defeating Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. Alcaraz, despite a second-round exit at the 2024 US Open, has previously reached the 2023 semi-final and won the tournament in 2022.

Djokovic has not won a major in the past 24 months but reached the last four at every Grand Slam in 2025, falling to Zverev at the Australian Open and to Jannik Sinner in Paris and London. Zverev opened the season by reaching the Melbourne final, where he lost to Sinner, and despite a first-round loss at Wimbledon he remains third in both the ATP rankings and the live ATP Race to Turin.

For Rune, the loss to Struff was another five-set reversal after surrendering a two-set lead to Nicholas Jarry at Wimbledon weeks earlier. “There (at Wimbledon) I went physically dead. I didn’t do that here, so it’s progress,” the Dane said. The more positive tone was aided by appearing free of a recurring knee issue which was attributed to the loss to the Chilean.

Overall Rune has now lost three of his last four Grand Slam matches and reproduced his two fourth-round exits from 2024. “He played fearlessly and hit the lines most of the time, so it was difficult for me to do more. He went for his punches and succeeded with it, so hats off to him,” Rune added.

“I think it’s very risky to play like that, and there are not many who go for their shots that much.

“I think it’s crazy that they can play so risky and be successful in the long run.

“I had a good feeling going into the fifth set. I think I played solid without being crazy good or crazy bad, but he was just brave and at his best at the crucial moments.

“(On the net cord which favoured the German) It’s just bad luck. It happened at some annoying times, but it wasn’t decisive for the match and he deserved the luck.”