Jannik Sinner won the first Masters 1000 of his career on Sunday in Toronto, easily dominating Australian Alex de Minaur in straight sets 6-4, 6-1 in the final. It is the most beautiful trophy of the young Italian’s career, three days before his 22nd birthday. He had already won seven lower category tournaments, including six on hard, his favorite surface, the latest in Montpellier in February. A few weeks after this success in the Hérault, he failed against the Russian Daniil Medvedev in the final of the Masters 1000 in Miami. It was also in Florida that he played, and lost, his first final at this level in 2021.
Having arrived in form in Toronto after playing in the final at the Los Cabos tournament, where he had lost the previous week to the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, Sinner had a relatively quiet run in Ontario. Frenchman Gaël Monfils was the one who gave him the most trouble in the quarter-finals and the only one to take a set from him. The Italian also took advantage of Briton Andy Murray’s withdrawal in the round of 16. In half, he had on Saturday the American Tommy Paul, the world number one scorer, Carlos Alcaraz.
Like the Spaniard, the cadors of the circuit had a bad week in Ontario, where Novak Djokovic had decided not to go, to rest. Other big favorite Daniil Medvedev lost to De Minaur in the quarters and underdogs like Dane Holger Rune, Norwegian Casper Ruud, Russian Andrey Rublev and Tsitsipas were gone before him.
In the final, Sinner confirmed the hierarchy of the ATP ranking (8th against 18th) and also his personal dominance against his 24-year-old opponent, whom he had beaten four out of four times. He needed three breaks to conclude the first set, the first two having been canceled by De Minaur, then the very disappointing Australian collapsed in the second, leaving Sinner slipping away to an easy victory in 1h 28min . “It’s a great result. I played every opponent with the right attitude. I had pressure but I took it very well,” said Sinner, from Trentino-Alto Adige, the German-speaking Alpine region in northern Italy.
Thanks to this success, Sinner rises Monday to 6th place in the world, the best ranking of his career.