HEADING into last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals, Jannik Sinner was ranked the lowest and considered the biggest underdog in a group that included Frances Tiafoe, Mikael Ymer and Ugo Humbert. Defeating the first two and narrowly losing to the third, Sinner progressed through to the semi-finals where he took down Miomir Kecmanovic before stunning top 20 Australian, Alex de Minaur in straight sets to win the title.

He had the home crowd support with the Next Gen ATP Finals played in Milan, but red haired Italian showed just how much potential he had and it was his breaking out tournament. The next week to end the year he dropped right back to Challenger level, easily taking out an event at Ortisei to close out a year which saw him play 21 matches at ATP Tour level, winning 11 of them.

It was a remarkable and underrated year from the 18-year-old who started at an M15 event in Tunisia where he lost in the second round, and then was bundled out in the first round in the same place a week later. His first Challenger event at Bergamo saw him stun the field and storm to victory ranked 546th in the world. It boosted him up to 324th, and he won an M25 at Trento a week later. Backing it up with a third consecutive title at Santa Margherita in his home nation, he stepped up again to the Challenger Tour, only to be knocked out by Carlos Alcaraz.

His debut on the ATP Tour this year saw him compete at Budapest where he won by retirement against Lukas Rosol and made it through to the second round before being bundled out by Laslo Djere. He reached the final of a Challenger event in the Czech Republic after that, then earned a wildcard at the ATP Masters in Rome. He showed he would not be making up the numbers ranked 263rd in the world, stunning American Steve Johnson despite dropping the first set, then recovering to win in three, 1-6 6-1 7-5. He would bow out to Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets next match, but was far from disgraced.

An unlucky and strange occurrence at Lyon a week later saw him defeat Tristan Lamasine in qualifying to make the main draw, only for Lamasine to earn a lucky loser place against him, and then turn the tables. But now Sinner was starting to make main draws of ATP Tour events and slowly climb up the rankings. Unfortunately he lost in the first round of qualifying at Wimbledon to Alex Bolt, but made a second round in Umag the next week. A few weeks later, he turned the tables on Bolt by toppling him in the final at Lexington to take home another Challenger title and he shot up into 135th in the world. Now he was in range of automatically qualifying for some 250 events.

He had to fight his way through qualifying at the US Open, winning three consecutive matches against opponents outside the top 200, only to cop Stan Wawrinka in the first round at Flushing Meadows. He won a set of the Swiss star, but could not consistently beat him, going down in four sets. He would face him again in Antwerp in October, and again go down, but not before breaking through with an eye-opening win over Gael Monfils. Toppling the world number 13 suddenly had eyes on the teenager who had only recently turned 18. A week later Monfils got him back with victory in Vienna, but over the two weeks, Sinner accounted for Tiafoe again, and the challenging Philipp Kohlschreiber.

The next tournament was his successful Next Gen ATP Finals, which brings it to the start of 2020. Shooting up inside the top 100 to finish the year at 78th in the world, many expected him to be in the top 50 once the Australian summer was over. Instead, Sinner lost to 121st ranked Emil Ruusuvuori in a Challenger event in Bendigo which had some people scratching their heads. He was then bundled out by world number 24 Benoit Paire a week later in Auckland, and only reached the second round at Melbourne Park thanks to a straight sets win over 215th ranked Australian, Max Purcell.

The last few tournaments were indicative of Sinner’s inconsistency, stunning David Goffin in Rotterdam – which made it his highest scalp to date by beating the world number 10 – and pushed Pablo Carreno Busta all the way in the quarter finals. The Italian even took a set off Daniil Medvedev the next week in Marseille, but somehow dropped a match to 114th ranked Denis Kudla at Indian Wells 125K event.

Sinner has all the talent to progress up the rankings, and he showed in his limited time on tour has is capable of doing it. He has had some bumps along the way as you would expect, but if he can rekindle the form he had at the end of last year, then he could be someone that takes the next step and progresses into the top 50, and then hopefully top 20.