Sinner closes his 2026 season for knee treatment after the Wimbledon win

Jannik Sinner said on Tuesday that his 2026 season is over. The world No. 1 has not played since he beat Alexander Zverev in the Wimbledon final on 12 July. He withdrew from the US Open with a right-knee injury, and he had already pulled out of the Shanghai Masters. The new decision adds the Paris Masters, the ATP Finals in Turin, and the Davis Cup Final 8, where he would have played for Italy as host and as a three-time defending champion.

"Me, together with the doctors, have decided that I need a course of treatment for my knee, which means that the 2026 season is officially over," he said in a video message. "I also need to think about my long-term career so I will do everything possible to get back 100 percent." AP carried the message from a post on Instagram. Reuters carried the same lines from a post on X. His team said in a statement that the treatment is for inflammation in the knee, and that it was being done now so he would have the time to recover before preparations for 2027.

He is 25. The last two seasons ended for him in Turin, where he won the ATP Finals in each of them. He said those endings had given him feelings he would not have this year. The absence is not a rest week. It is the whole of the indoor swing and the year-end finals, plus the team event Italy has owned. A player who skips Shanghai and then comes back for Paris is managing a calendar. A player who closes the season in July is managing a joint.

The ranking consequence is the part of the decision that does not wait for 2027. Sinner risks losing the No. 1 spot while he is out, because points drop off and rivals keep playing. He did not say he expected to keep it. He said he was choosing the knee over the rest of the year. That is a different calculation from the one he made when he withdrew from New York and left the door open for Asia. The door is now shut.

The injury itself has been described as inflammation, not as a tear that requires a named operation. The public record is the team's word and his. No surgeon has been named, and no timetable inside 2027 has been given beyond the intention to start preparations for that season. Inflammation in a knee that has already cost him the US Open is enough, on his account, to take the last four months of the year.

For Italy the Davis Cup Final 8 is the sharpest loss. Sinner has been the reason the side could defend the title. A Final 8 without him is a different team, even with the home advantage of hosting. The Italian federation has not, in the first reports, named a replacement captain's plan. The fact of his absence is the news. The selection is the next note.

For the tour, the last major of the year is already played, and the indoor season now runs without the man who won Wimbledon. Carlos Alcaraz and the rest of the top group pick up the draws he has left. Novak Djokovic, who won Beijing on the same day Sinner closed his year, is the oldest contrast: a 39-year-old taking a title while the 25-year-old at No. 1 stops. The two decisions are not linked. They land on the same Tuesday.

Sinner's choice is the one available to a player who has already won the biggest title of his summer and who has a knee that has not answered since. He can chase Turin and risk a longer layoff, or he can take the treatment and give the joint the months. He has taken the months. The 2026 season, for him, ended on 12 July in the final he won, and was declared over on 6 October in a video.