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Sinner and Swiatek Win ITF World Champion Awards 

Iga Swiatek of Poland waves after defeating Eva Lys of Germany in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)
Iga Swiatek of Poland waves after defeating Eva Lys of Germany in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)
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Sinner and Swiatek Win ITF World Champion Awards 

Iga Swiatek of Poland waves after defeating Eva Lys of Germany in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)
Iga Swiatek of Poland waves after defeating Eva Lys of Germany in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)

Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek have won the International Tennis Federation’s 2024 world champion awards.

Swiatek edged out Aryna Sabalenka for the women’s singles award in the list announced by the ITF on Monday.

Swiatek won the French Open plus four WTA 1000 titles, an Olympic bronze medal at the Paris Games and also helped Poland to the Billie Jean King Cup semifinals. Sabalenka won the Australian and US Open crowns and finished the year ranked No. 1.

Sinner is the first Italian to win the award. He finished 2024 at No. 1 with a 73-6 win-loss record after winning the Australian and US Open titles, the ATP Finals and leading Italy’s successful defense of the Davis Cup crown.

Sinner and Swiatek were both subject to doping cases last year, which has overshadowed their participation at the Australian Open this month.

The ITF said the world champion awards were selected based on “objective criteria” considering all results but with a special emphasis on Grand Slams, the World Cup of Tennis competitions and the Olympic and Paralympic events.

“Last year was a memorable year for our sport with the staging of the Olympic and Paralympic Games alongside our traditional team events,” ITF President David Haggerty said. “And we see with several of our award winners that representing their country inspired them to even greater achievements in 2024.”

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Sinner Gets Past Rune at Australian Open in Match with Net, Medical Delays

Tennis - Australian Open - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia - January 20, 2025 Italy's Jannik Sinner shakes hands with Denmark's Holger Rune after winning his fourth round match REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
Tennis - Australian Open - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia - January 20, 2025 Italy's Jannik Sinner shakes hands with Denmark's Holger Rune after winning his fourth round match REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
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Sinner Gets Past Rune at Australian Open in Match with Net, Medical Delays

Tennis - Australian Open - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia - January 20, 2025 Italy's Jannik Sinner shakes hands with Denmark's Holger Rune after winning his fourth round match REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
Tennis - Australian Open - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia - January 20, 2025 Italy's Jannik Sinner shakes hands with Denmark's Holger Rune after winning his fourth round match REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

First came the medical timeouts, one each for Jannik Sinner and Holger Rune with the temperature above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) at the Australian Open. Then came the unusual sight of a 20-minute delay because the net at Rod Laver Arena detached from the court after being hit by a big Sinner serve.
In the end, Sinner put his physical struggles aside and emerged with the victory — as he keeps doing, no matter the site or the circumstances — and the defending champion moved into the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park on Monday by eliminating the 13th-seeded Rune 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The No. 1-ranked Sinner occasionally tried to cool off by pressing a cold towel to his face or pouring water down the back of his neck, The Associated Press reported. He was far better down the stretch, both after a 10-minute-plus delay in the third set when he went to the locker room for medical attention and after a 20-minute holdup in the fourth when the screw connecting the net to the blue playing surface came undone.
“I knew in my mind ... I would struggle today,” Sinner said during his on-court interview, without saying what was wrong. "Me and the doctor, we talked a little bit. It helped me."
He has won 18 consecutive tour-level matches, dating to late 2024. Last season, Sinner went 73-6 with eight titles, the first man with that many tournament championships in a single year since Andy Murray in 2016.
That haul included Sinner’s first two Grand Slam trophies, at the Australian Open in January and the US Open in September, the latter shortly after he was exonerated for testing positive for an anabolic steroid twice in March. His case is still unresolved, though, with a hearing scheduled for April in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s appeal of the ruling.
Rune, a 21-year-old from Denmark, was trying to get to the quarterfinals in Melbourne for the first time.
Sinner will face No. 8 Alex de Minaur of Australia or unseeded Alex Michelsen of the US for a berth in the semifinals. A second Italian joined Sinner in the quarterfinals when 55th-ranked Lorenzo Sonego got that far at a major tournament for the first time by ending the run of American qualifier Learner Tien 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Sonego will now face No. 21 Ben Shelton of the U.S. or Gael Monfils of France.