Sunday, November 17, 2024, 8:04 p.m.
Jannik Sinner strengthened his position as the best tennis player in the world this Sunday with one of the titles missing from his collection, the master crown. The Italian defeated the American Taylor Fritz (6-4 and 6-4) and won his first title in the ATP Finals to close a dream season in which he has been number one, has won two Grand Slams (Australian Open and US Open Open) and three Masters 1,000.
With this triumph, Sinner has won the ATP Finals undefeated, which gives him 1,500 points and a jackpot of 4.4 million euros, the second largest prize in the history of tennis, only behind the almost seven million that were awarded. bagged a few weeks ago at the Saudi Arabia exhibition. The haul of points opens a gap of almost 4,000 units with the second in the classification, the German Alexander Zverev, the only one who seemed to be able to stand up to him in the tournament held in Turin, but who fell in the semifinals against Fritz.
The American, however, as usually happens in this type of match, collapsed in the final of the masters tournament and was not able to show his face as required. It already happened in the final of the US Open, when Sinner also won. Two breaks, one in each set, were enough to defeat Fritz, who did nothing better than the Italian throughout the match. Sinner hit more aces (14 for 8), conceded fewer breaking balls (1 for 6), hit more winners (28 for 20) and made fewer unforced errors (17 for 21).
Sinner continued with the momentum of the entire tournament and achieved a milestone that no one had achieved since 1986. He won the tournament without losing a single set, like Ivan Lendl in 1986, when he achieved it twice, because the tournament at that time was played in two times a year, in January and December. Not only has the transalpine player won it without losing a set, but he has not given up more than four games in any of them. Neither Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic or Pete Sampras, the men who have won this title the most times, achieved this.
This victory closes a spectacular season for Sinner, who has established himself as the best in the world. He has achieved 70 victories this year, the most on the circuit, and has only lost six games, half of them against Carlos Alcaraz. In total, he has won eight titles, including two Grand Slams (Australian Open and US Open), three Masters 1,000 (Miami, Cincinnati and Shanghai), two ATP 500 (Rotterdam and Halle) and the ATP Finals.
His season, sadly, will also be remembered for the unannounced double positive in Indian Wells that he resorted to and won. This case, however, is not yet closed, because the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has requested a sanction of one to two years for the Italian, who defends his innocence and alleges that it was a mistake by his masseuse, who has already been fired. .
