Switzerland will not play in the final phase of the World Cup

Italian tennis returned to victory at the Foro Italico Big favorite for the Masters 1000 in Rome, world No. 1 Jannik Sinner got the better of Norwegian Casper Ruud in the final on Sunday.

Sinner (24 years old) won 6-4 6-4 against the 25th in the world, whom he had swept aside 6-0 6-1 in the quarter-finals of this same tournament last year, to become the first Italian, on the men’s side, to register his name on the winners list of the Italian Open since 1976 and Adriano Panatta.

After a laborious start to the final which saw him lose his entry serve, then break his opponent in stride, it was not until the ninth game that Sinner took the upper hand with three drop shots which made Ruud crack. The Italian, jostled in the semi-finals by the Russian Daniil Medvedev (ATP 9), then pocketed the first set with a service shutout in 49 minutes.

With his service back and an opponent in overdrive, starting to make more mistakes, he quickly took off in the second set to lead 3-1, then 5-3, before realizing his first match point on a winning forehand.

“A golden period”

“It’s been a long time since an Italian won here, it’s a good thing for our tennis which is going through a golden period. It wasn’t a perfect match, but it crowns two and a half months of incredible tennis. I’m super happy, it was very difficult on a physical level,” he declared before the protocol ceremony.

In the excited atmosphere of the Campo Centrale, driven by 10,500 spectators warmed by the sun finally returning, Sinner scored a 29th victory in a row and extended his record series of successes in Masters 1000 to 34.

He won his 29th title, his 10th in Masters 1000 and his fifth of the year after Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo and Madrid.

He also became the second player in history, after Novak Djokovic, to have won the nine Masters 1000s on the calendar in less than three years when it had taken the Serbian eleven years to achieve this success.

In the absence of his great rival Carlos Alcaraz, injured, Sinner will be the big favorite for Roland-Garros (May 24-June 7) where he hopes to complete his collection of Grand Slam titles.

This article has been automatically published. Sources: ats / afp