PARIS — Behind the soft smile, the puff of red hair and the bright hazel eyes, Jannik Sinner has evolved into the ultimate men’s tennis assassin. The Italian from a small mountain town in the Dolomites, who cherishes his family, his close circle and his ability to lead a normal life, shrugs or laughs off any suggestion that he wants to destroy any opponents.

Of course he does. Isn’t that what an assassin would do?

More startlingly, his victims all know the manner in which they will fall. They know how Sinner will trap them in the corners of a tennis court, before letting them gain the worst sort of comfort in sports: The kind where they can feel how illusory it is, even as they sink into the back-and-forth rallies that make up tennis’ staple diet.

“You get no breathing room from any corner,” said Casper Ruud in a news conference ahead of the French Open. Ruud, the two-time Roland Garros finalist, was somewhat encouraged by his 6-4, 6-4 loss to Sinner at the Italian Open final earlier this month.

“Whether you’re playing the forehand crosscourt rally, the backhand crosscourt rally, you know that the ball will come at a high pace. So you know that if you’re not very precise with your own shots, he’s going to be there on top of you and punish you.”

Sinner has smothered 29 consecutive opponents, the longest winning streak in men’s tennis since Novak Djokovic won 43 straight matches in 2011.

He has won six consecutive ATP Masters 1000 titles, the level below a Grand Slam. He also won the ATP Tour Finals toward the start of that run.

Carlos Alcaraz took the first Grand Slam of the year at January’s Australian Open, after Djokovic stunned Sinner in the semifinals. Sinner absorbed it, and set his sights on reclaiming the No. 1 ranking. He owned it by mid-April, having had almost zero points to defend in that time after missing most of February; March and April in 2025 to serve an anti-doping suspension.

But the most interesting thing about Sinner’s relentless winning is how he goes about it. Every assassin has their preferred methods, whether it’s a pistol or a poison. Pete Sampras and John McEnroe used their power serves and smothering net games. Rafael Nadal liked to inflict death by a thousand cuts, finding joy in hitting 14 grueling shots to set up the kill on the 15th.

Sinner lures his opponents into a false sense of security. One moment, they are enjoying the most basic form of friendly tennis conversation. A crosscourt exchange. Backhands or forehands. The ball pinging across the net from one corner to the other.

Before they see it coming, Sinner changes direction, shooting the ball down the line and into the open court. He doesn’t even need to hit it all that hard. The depth, accuracy and topspin act as the last push, off the cliff and into the gaping ravine below.

“I’m a player who plays a lot with my gut feeling,” he said during a news conference at the Italian Open. “If I feel a shot, I just go for it. I don’t second-guess.”

Sinner has turned his gifts of consistency and conviction into domination. In the past 52 weeks, he has won 57 percent of baseline vs. baseline points, according to data from Courtside Advantage. Only Djokovic and Alcaraz are close to him, at 56.4 percent and 55.8 percent, respectively.

Just 17 percent of his forehands and 29 percent of his backhand land in the middle strip of the court. Both numbers are below the tour averages.

Perhaps most amazingly, Sinner put his most effective weapon to use less often than the average tour player. Given how steady he is, he doesn’t need to rush the kill shot.

He has hit crosscourt forehands and backhands on 37 percent of his shots during the past year. He’s about 5 percentage points ahead of the field average on the backhand side and level with it on the forehand side. He is also significantly below the tour average in terms of how often he switches direction. But when he does, he does so to maximum effect.

Sinner’s backhands and forehands down the line, and his inside-in forehand, either win the point or improve his chances of winning it 55 percent of the time. For the rest of the tour, the average is 37 percent. That may be because he takes a little off these shots, prioritizing accuracy over pure power.

His down-the-line forehand averages 75 mph, which is 4 mph faster than the tour average but 6 mph slower than his usual regular topspin forehand. That averages 81 mph.

The accuracy and reliability of these supposedly high-risk shots go a long way toward explaining why Sinner essentially never loses these days. Even opponents who have spent their careers torturing opponents using very similar tactics are astounded by Sinner’s effectiveness

No one likes to settle into a backhand-to-backhand conversation more than Daniil Medvedev. He knows how the math changes when Sinner is on the other side of the net.

“Jannik can any moment decide, kind of, to step up and, for example, go down the line. But not many players can do the backhand down the line and do it every time almost as a winner,” Medvedev said in a news conference Friday.

“He can. He can do it for three sets. Step up, down the line, strong shot, and then he’s super fast to cover the forehand side.”

Medvedev said Sinner’s speed and balance — all those years on the ski slopes paying dividends — make him even more troublesome. He tries to wrong-foot Sinner. Doesn’t work. Like much of the rest of the tour, Medvedev pats himself on the back when he can make it close.

He lost two tiebreak sets in the BNP Paribas Open final in March. He took a set off him in the semifinals in Rome..

“I know that I lost many matches against him lately, but some of them were pretty close, and I’m, like, ‘OK, next time I really have to do even a bit better and get him,’” Medvedev said.

On his Served podcast in April, Andy Roddick recalled the miserable feeling of being in an even rally against Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, the players that drove him into retirement. If he was neutral, he was losing, because they were so much better at finding a way to offense.

That’s how the current crop feels about Sinner, whether he is serving or they are. They know how quickly he can steer points onto his terms.

“With other guys, I can get away with putting the ball in the court and either being at neutral or having to scramble a little bit at the first ball and then getting back to neutral or getting on offense,” Ben Shelton said in a news conference after losing to Sinner in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in January. “He was able to put me in uncomfortable positions and get to offense.”

Sinner knows better than anyone what discomfort looks like for one of his opponents. It looks like being pinned on one side of the court, and knowing that Sinner’s dart to all that open territory down the line is coming.

“It’s getting more and more important to go down the line, changing direction first,” he said in Paris. “So I’m someone who, if I feel something, I go for it.”

And then, just as it has been for months on end, it’s on to the next target.