Sinner ends 2026 season with knee injury, will miss Turin and Davis Cup

Jannik Sinner will not play again in 2026. The world No. 1 announced on Tuesday, 6 October, in a video on his social media channels that his ongoing knee problem needs a course of treatment, and that the decision ends his season with immediate effect.

"Me, together with the doctors, have decided that I need a course of treatment on my knee, which means that the 2026 season is officially over," Sinner said. He added: "At the moment I also need to think about my long-term career. So I will do everything possible to get back a hundred percent."

No Turin title defence, no Davis Cup

The announcement rules the Italian out of the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin from 15 to 22 November, where he is the two-time defending champion. Sinner has a 15-2 record at the year-end event and won the title in both 2024 and 2025 without dropping a set. He will also miss Vienna, the Paris Masters and the Davis Cup Final 8 in Bologna, where Italy will now have to defend the title at home without their leader.

Sinner has not played since he won Wimbledon in July, his fifth Grand Slam title. He then missed the whole North American hard-court swing, including the US Open, and skipped the ATP 500 in Beijing. Last week he also withdrew from the Shanghai Masters, which began on Wednesday. His team has not given a precise diagnosis. Italian media describe it as inflammation of the right knee, and Tennis Majors lists several possibilities that have been reported in recent months, none of them confirmed.

What it means for the ranking race

The biggest beneficiary is Alexander Zverev. The German, who won Roland Garros and the US Open this year, leads the Live Race To Turin with 8,750 points, 800 ahead of Sinner on 7,950. Sinner can no longer add to that total, so Zverev now has a clear path to finishing the year as No. 1 for the first time in his career, as long as he keeps winning matches.

For now Sinner still tops the weekly PIF ATP Rankings. That will not last much longer. Because the rankings cover a rolling 52 weeks, the points he earned in the autumn of 2025, including his Turin title, will drop off over the coming weeks while he stays on the sidelines.

Zverev survives ankle scare against Wu to stay on course in Shanghai

A season of two halves

It is an abrupt end to a season that started out as one of Sinner's best. After losing the Australian Open semifinal to Novak Djokovic, he won five Masters 1000 titles in a row in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome. That run completed the Career Golden Masters and stretched to a 30-match winning streak before it ended at Roland Garros. With Wimbledon added, he leads the tour with six titles in 2026, and his ten wins over top-10 players are double any other player's total, according to Tennis Majors.

The knee has kept him off the court ever since. He spent the summer pulling out of events one at a time, and has now decided to stop altogether rather than rush back for the final weeks of the year. His team says treating the knee now gives him time to recover before he starts preparing for 2027.

Without him, the end of the season is wide open. Zverev is the top seed in Shanghai, while Carlos Alcaraz arrives fresh from defending his Tokyo title and Djokovic from his seventh Beijing crown. Sinner has not set a date for his return. His next realistic target is the 2027 Australian swing in January.