When Sinner won his maiden Grand Slam title in Melbourne earlier this year he was forced to produce an extraordinary comeback from two sets down to beat Daniil Medvedev in the final.

It was more straightforward in New York as he rarely looked troubled by Fritz, who struggled to build any momentum.

However, Sinner’s build-up to this year’s tournament at Flushing Meadows was far from normal.

Just six days before the main draw got under way, it was announced he had twice tested positive for low levels of a metabolite of clostebol – a steroid that can be used to build muscle mass – in March.

Sinner was ruled to bear no fault or negligence for the positive tests by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which found he had been inadvertently contaminated by his physiotherapist.

He subsequently parted ways with the physio and his fitness trainer – but questions continued about whether Sinner’s case had been handled differently to those of other players because of his world number one status.

But he has seemingly been able to put the controversy behind him, manoeuvring his way through tough tests against Britain’s Jack Draper and 2021 champion Medvedev.

He and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, the French Open and Wimbledon champion, have split the Grand Slam spoils between them this year.

It marks a new era of tennis as 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic, who was knocked out in the third round, ends the year without a Grand Slam title for the first time since 2017.