ROD LAVER ARENA — Jannik Sinner became the first Italian player in history to win three grand slam titles as he brushed off Alexander Zverev 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 to win the Australian Open.
Defending champion Sinner has now the last three grand slams on this surface and reinforced his world No 1 status by beating his closest rival with such apparent ease: the 23-year-old did not face a single break point in the match.
The world’s top two players have enjoyed opposite fortunes in their first three major finals, Zverev now having lost his and Sinner having joined a prestigious roster of eight men to have won them.
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Read MoreThe list of those to have done so includes Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and Roger Federer, but also Carlos Alcaraz, and the spectacle of Sinner and Alcaraz facing off with a major title on the line, yet to happen, feels even more desirable in the wake after such a one-sided finale.
Of course, Zverev had been a clear underdog, with perhaps a 30 per cent chance by some statistical approximations and even less according to the bookmakers. His advantage though was a physical one: Novak Djokovic’s one-set retirement on Friday afternoon had forced Zverev to book a practice court afterwards, so lightly raced was he.
There was little danger of Sinner doing the same, given the trials and tribulations his body seems to have been through in Australia: he was seen shaking during his quarter-final against Holger Rune and was treated by doctors for heat exhaustion. And he was treated for cramp during his semi-final, what was otherwise a routine three-set victory over Ben Shelton.
The curious element to all of that is that Sinner’s tennis has been pretty exemplary, and he has rarely been pushed hard by opponents. Rumours have been waxing and waning of the Italian suffering from a wider illness – one particularly far-fetched report claimed it was pneumonia – usually growing louder in the days between his matches and then silenced by a three or four-set victory.
The 24-year-old’s awkward gait does not help his cause either. Between points, his pale, spindly legs do not move with much grace or fluidity. Like Andy Murray, watch him too closely and you will convince yourself he is about to pull himself out of the match.
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Read MoreBut once the point starts, Sinner reads the game so well that he is almost never in the wrong place – and if he is, unwieldily though it might look, he does seem to eat up the ground deceptively quickly. So as Zverev tried to break him down in the early stages, it was largely in vain. The question did not seem to be who would draw first blood, but when would Sinner? As it was, it was at the sixth time of asking. Zverev, whose first serve is one of the word’s most destructive weapons, was his saviour of choice – but the very first time that Sinner got himself into a rally on break point, he broke. After 46 minutes, he had the first set and Zverev was growing increasingly frustrated.
It wasn’t just his struggle to break down Sinner’s serve that was getting him upset either. Fresh rackets, which he says he delivered to be restrung an hour before the match, had still not be delivered to the court. Sources in the stringing department insist the rackets left the office in a timely manner, suggesting the blockage was likely to be within Zverev’s team, but he could have used three at the same time and it didn’t feel like it would have made much difference.
When his new rackets did finally arrive in the second set, he was able to do little more than hold Sinner at bay – although he will wonder what might have been had a brutal dead net cord at 4-4 in the tie-break landed the other side of the net.
In some ways, that simplified the equation for Zverev, who now had to win all three remaining sets in order to lift the trophy. But simple it was not and Sinner, rather than fade as Zverev had to hope he might, started to hit the ball if anything even better. His serving speeds went up and he gave Zverev almost nothing free from the baseline. If he wanted to depose the defending champion, he would have to take it away from him.
And as it was, he could not.
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