World No. 1 Jannik Sinner defeated No. 23 Alexander Bublik on Monday night at the U.S. Open, dominating 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 in straight sets.

For Sinner, it was another step in his march towards the final, where he will look to defend his title from last summer. For Bublik, it was a sobering defeat. Just two days earlier, he had defeated No. 14 Tommy Paul to set up his matchup against Sinner, proving he had what it took to pull off an upset.

But Sinner is simply a different level of talent, and Bublik seems to have no problem admitting to it.

As the two embraced after the match, Bublik told Sinner smiling, “That was so good. I’m not bad. Like, what the f---?”

The U.S. Open shared video of the moment from their official account, but did their best to translate things at a PG level.

So just how is Sinner’s play on such another level compared to that of his top-ranked opponents? Bublik had offered one explanation ahead of the match.

Asked what made Sinner such a difficult opponent, Bublik said, “I guess everything.”

He continued:

“He’s like an AI-generated player. But we will try to find a way to get to him, to get closer to beating him. I was lucky once. We’ll see how it goes today.”

After the match, Bublik doubled-down on his explanation.

I’m going to assume that by AI-generated, Bublik is implying that Sinner’s skills are so good it's ike they were designed in a lab, rather than that he plays like he has six fingers on each hand and is unable to count the number of times a letter appears in a certain word.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dumbfounded Alexander Bublik May Have the Only Explanation for Jannik Sinner's Dominance.

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