Sinner still in history: he flies to the final in Rotterdam and is the no. 3 in the world

Sinner still in history: he flies to the final in Rotterdam and is the no. 3 in the world

Jannik Sinner makes no mistakes and reaches the final again in the ATP 500 in Rotterdam, which saw him lose against Medvedev in 2023. The South Tyrolean and number one seed, who thanks to this success reaches the top-3 in the world rankings, beats the host Tallon Griekspoor with the score 6-2, 6-4 in 1h21' of play: match in control for Jannik, who dominates the first set and controls his rival's reaction in the second. He will now challenge De Minaur (5), who eliminated Dimitrov (6).

Sinner gets the better of Griekspoor, who had eliminated Musetti in the first round and Hurkacz (4) in the quarterfinals, achieving six tiebreaks in the matches played so far. There is no story in the first set, where Jannik is unplayable with his serve and his backhand: the blue immediately flies to 3-1 and overturns a break point from Griekspoor to take the lead at 5-1 and glimpse the partial success. The Oranje holds out at 5-2, then Sinner closes it: it's 6-2 in 34' of play. The second set was decidedly more balanced, where the South Tyrolean rival knows he has to give everything to avoid defeat in front of his fans. Griekspoor takes the lead at 2-1 and resists Sinner's comeback, who makes the decisive move when he gets to 5-4 by making the most of the new balls. At this point the blue serves for the match and, after being caught at 30-30, closes it with serve.

His title challenger will be Alex De Minaur, seeded number 5 in the seeding, who in turn dominated the penultimate act. The Australian defeated Dimitrov (6) with a score of 6-4, 6-3, confirming his great form after eliminating Rublev (2) in the quarterfinals. While waiting for the title, Sinner thus celebrates the number 3 in the ATP rankings achieved at the expense of Medvedev. No Italian had ever climbed so high, if not Nicola Pietrangeliwho in the pre-computer era had been the third player in the world at the end of 1959 and at the end of 1960.

SINNER: “I WANT TO BE AN EXAMPLE FOR THE KIDS, THIRD PLACE IS WORTH A LOT FOR ITALY”

Jannik Sinner's golden moment continues. The South Tyrolean is beaming after the match won in Holland: “The third ATP place means a lot for me and for all of Italy – he told Sky Sport -. The most important thing, however, is to move Italian tennis towards the direction of to let many kids play, to be an example. In the end it's just a number. I raised my level in this semi-final, it was the best match of the tournament. I hope to have more confidence for the final.”