Sinner sweeps past De Minaur in Turin opener

Jannik Sinner quickly shook off some early rust to power to an impressive opening victory on Sunday night at the Nitto ATP Finals.

The home favourite prevailed 6-3, 6-4 against Alex de Minaur to kick-start his 2024 campaign at the prestigious season finale. Competing in his first match since he lifted the Rolex Shanghai Masters trophy on 13 October, Sinner responded superbly to dropping serve in the third game of the match against De Minaur. He wrapped victory in 85 minutes at Inalpi Arena to move to 1-0 in Ilie Nastase Group.

“Considering [how long since I last played], I’m very happy,” said Sinner. “I started off with some unforced errors. He was playing great in the beginning of the match, so I just tried to stay there mentally, knowing that hopefully at some point my tennis would arrive. It arrived quite early, and I started to return very well.

“My serve, for sure I have to improve if I want to [win] the next match. Against Taylor [Fritz] for example, today he played really well. Let’s see, but today I’m very pleased about the win and hopefully this can give me confidence for the next one.”

??? Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole... SINNER! SINNER! ???@janniksin begins his quest for the #NittoATPFinals title with a comprehensive victory over de Minaur on home soil! pic.twitter.com/v4G696CjHe

A finalist at the Nitto ATP Finals a year ago, Sinner this year returned to Turin as the first Italian No. 1 in PIF ATP Rankings history. Despite his early lapse on serve against De Minaur, the 23-year-old showed few signs of nerves in his first tour-level match on home soil for 12 months. He pulled De Minaur around the court with heavy groundstrokes off both wings and was consistently aggressive on return.

After winning four straight games from 1-2 en route to the opening set, Sinner notched the decisive break of the second set in the fifth game. He completed victory to the delight of his home crowd, which included some of his fellow Italian sports stars: His fellow ATP stars Flavio Cobolli and Lorenzo Sonego, WTA World No. 4 Jasmine Paolini, and former Italy and Juventus football star Giorgio Chiellini were among those cheering Sinner on.

“It has to be the crowd,” said Sinner, when asked for his favourite thing about playing at home. “It has to be the energy. I love to play at home. It’s a huge honour, and I was just looking forward to it. Today was a great night. I didn’t play Rome [this year], so it was the first match [in 2024] in Italy. The welcome was very warm, very amazing. I can’t wait for the next one.”

Sinner demonstrated the sort of baseline firepower that has been the foundation of his rise to World No. 1 against De Minaur. He outhit the Australian by 19 winners to seven, while he also won 81 per cent (26/32) of points behind his first serve, according to Infosys ATP Stats.

With Sunday’s win, Sinner improved to 8-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Nitto ATP Finals debutant De Minaur. He has now won seven consecutive tour-level matches and has registered a joint Tour-leading 66 wins this year (alongside Alexander Zverev). The Italian will seek to extend his winning streak to eight matches on Tuesday when he takes on Daniil Medvedev or Taylor Fritz in his second group-stage match.

It was never going to be an easy task for De Minaur to overcome the World No. 1 in his maiden appearance at the Nitto ATP Finals, but the 25-year-old can still make it out of the Ilie Nastase Group with strong performances against Medvedev and Fritz.

“I knew I had my work cut out,” said De Minaur. “I thought I started well, then I kind of slipped away. I just couldn't sustain the level that I needed today to beat Jannik.

“His ball speed, in my eyes, is so much higher than basically the rest of the people. From both sides he's solid. He keeps on improving. He's improved his serve so much throughout the years.

“I always rate my chances [of progressing out of the group]. I think the way I see it is that Jannik was the only player in the group who I hadn't had a win against. The rest of the players I've had some success against. Now I'm not playing the No. 1 in the world anymore, I'll be looking forward to that.”

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