Jannik Sinner, a true number one, capable of getting by even when not at 100 percent, wins his third Masters 1000 of his career in Cincinnati (out of five finals) and sends a clear and strong signal to his two great rivals Djokovic and Alcaraz one week before the US Open: I’m here.
Even if his condition is not yet at its best, and after all the controversy over his failure to participate in the Olympics, due to the now very famous tonsillitis. A Masters 1000 is not worth an Olympic medal, but it is precious and heavy material, and Jannik is the only one who has managed to pocket two so far.
In the final, Jan physically and mentally crushed Frances Tiafoe, who after a first set played at the same level as Volpe (3 break points against only 1 for our player) suffered the technical and nervous solidity of his opponent in the tie-break, and then loosened up in the second, ending up losing 7-6 6-2 after saving, out of pure pride, three match points at 5-1. For Jannik it is the fifth title (no one has done better) and as mentioned the second Masters 1000 of the year after the one won in Miami, in a season in which so far he has won 49 matches, losing just 5. For Italy it was the seventh final in a 1000 since the category was created in 1990 (at the time it was called Masters Series), and five bear the signature of Sinner. The other two were played by Fabio Fognini, winner in Monte Carlo in 2021 and Matteo Berrettini defeated by Zverev in Madrid in 2021. Tiafoe is not a very prestigious opponent, even if in the past he was top ten and in 2021 he beat Jan in a controversial final in Vienna. In the semifinal he beat Holger Rune in three sets and from today he returns to the top 20 after a difficult period, what is comforting above all is the determination and solidity with which Sinner kept him at bay in the crucial turning points of the match.
“It was a very tough week mentally – Jan admitted – I had ups and downs and problems in all the matches, and I’m very proud to have separated them anyway, today we were both tired from our respective semifinals, I hope to recover but I’m very happy with how I arrive at the US Open”. More, on his real physical condition (the concern for the pain in his hip is always latent) Jannik did not want to say more in the heat of the moment.
The week in Cincinnati – an ancient and prestigious tournament, 125 years of history, where an Italian player had never come so far -, the one in which Jannik turned 23, had begun in the wake of the defeat against Rublev in Montreal. And with a couple of below-par performances: against Michelsen in his debut and then against Rublev himself in the quarterfinals, after the break for the match won without taking the field due to Thompson’s withdrawal. The toughest match, the real final, was the one snatched in three sets from Zverev in the semifinals, where we saw at times the tough and dominant Sinner of the first part of the season. In short, a Sinner who, despite the problems he himself admitted, has been growing. In New York, in the last Slam of the season, against Alcaraz recovering from the mistake, even a nervous one, against Monfils, but still champion of Paris and Wimbledon; and a Djokovic ‘liberated’ by the conquest of the Olympic gold, it will predictably be another story. But Sinner, regardless of possible injuries, as Tiafoe himself explained, “today starts as the favourite against anyone”.
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