He nearly lost it on the first day.
The champion opens Wimbledon. That is the tradition, and it is a strange gift: Centre Court to yourself, world number one beside your name, and nothing available to you but confirmation of what everyone already assumes. Sinner went five sets before the tournament had properly started, and had to come from behind to survive them.
Thirteen days later he was back on the same grass, a set down again.
He had come through Novak Djokovic in the semi-final in straight sets. Alexander Zverev took the first on a tiebreak, 9-7. Sinner took the next three. The final ran 3 hours 46 minutes: 6-7, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Defending The Title
What it made him was the tenth man in the Open Era to defend the Wimbledon title. The list ahead of him includes Rod Laver, Björn Borg, Roger Federer and Carlos Alcaraz, which is to say it is not a list that grows quickly, and not a list anyone joins by accident.
It was his fifth Grand Slam singles title and his 100th Grand Slam match win. Earlier this year he became the youngest man to complete all nine ATP Masters 1000 titles.
Speaking to the crowd afterwards, he stayed with the feeling rather than the record:
"There is no better place to play tennis. You feel the nerves on Sunday morning when you wake up, it is very special, and you never know how many times you can come back."
The fortnight
More than 500,000 people came through the black gates of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club over the two weeks. The rain never came. The curfew nearly did, with match after match running towards the 11.00 p.m. cut-off in unbroken sunshine.
The Royal Box
Federer was there, eight titles behind him, more than any man has taken from this tournament. Next to him sat Stefan Edberg, who once coached him, and who won here in 1988 and 1990 with a serve-and-volley game that has since gone quietly out of the world.
Edberg was asked what the title meant. He answered by describing the second before it arrived:
"The moment before you serve on championship point is very special. Bouncing the ball, the silence of the 15,000 spectators, the sound of your breathing when you stand there alone with the chance to win. Nobody knows what will happen next."
Rolex has been timing that silence since 1978, when it first partnered with the tournament. Sinner joined its family of Testimonees in 2020, which puts him in the same company as the men watching him from the box.
He will be back in July for the landmark 2027 edition, with the chance to put his name on the honours board a third time.
