Jannik Sinner made it 25 indoor wins in row as he completely dominated a below-par Alexander Zverev 6-0, 6-1 in just over an hour to reach the final of the Paris Masters, and now has a chance to recapture the World Number one ranking from Carlos Alcaraz.
Sinner has entered eleven tournaments this year and reached nine finals. He is also into his ninth ATP Masters 1000 final, emphasising his stellar year which also included two Grand Slam victories in Australia and Wimbledon.
“I’m happy to be in the final, but it’s not how you want to arrive. Playing against Sascha is always a special occasion, and today he was clearly not 100 per cent, we saw that,” said Sinner on court afterwards. “When you drop the physicality like he did, you cannot find the full power on serve. He was struggling physically. He won an incredible match yesterday, two match points down and made the final in Vienna, coming here and making the semis again, it’s an incredible run, but we all hope that he gets better and fit for Turin.”
The Italian bossed rallies from the back of the court and was utterly ruthless against a clearly jaded Zverev who had two consecutive late-night finishes in earlier rounds. He fired 13 forehand winners and won 54 of the 80 points in total played, regularly putting the ball beyond the reach of the tired German.
Sinner has been champion at four other Masters events – Miami 2024, Cincinnati 2024, Shanghai 2024 and Canada 2023. He is a firm favourite to add Paris to the list tomorrow where he takes on Felix Auger-Aliassime.
“[Felix] plays incredible tennis at the moment, he has improved a lot,” Sinner said of Auger-Aliassime. “Especially in the past months, he has found his game again. I’m looking forward to it tomorrow; it’s a great occasion for both of us. I’m very happy for Felix, he is one of the nicest guys we have on Tour. It’s going to be a very difficult match.”
Auger-Aliassime beat Alexander Bublik 7-6 (4), 6-4 in the earlier semi-final of the Rolex Paris Masters – a result which also puts him in eighth place in the current standings for the season-ending ATP Nitto Finals in Turin.
The Canadian, who is a master of playing indoors having won seven of his eight ATP tour titles inside, reached his second ATP Masters Final after winning the five successive games from 4-1 down in the second set.
“I’m so happy. A Masters 1000 final sounds really good,” said Auger-Aliassime on court afterwards. “You don’t play those finals every week. Hopefully I can go all the way and get the title. Every match is tough. It’s a 56-draw and it is stacked. You wake up on a day and feel, ‘This guy is playing good, everybody is playing good’. So, you’re always curious and bit nervous to see how your game is going to match up. I have deep self confidence in my game. I know what I can do against the best players in the world, but you still have to go and execute. Today I did really well and I’m happy with the result.”
Games went with serve in a solid opening set from both players who held their games with relative comfort and neither faced a breakpoint as it headed into a tie-break. Auger-Aliassime took advantage of the early mini break and held a 6-3 lead and took the set when Bublik netted an easy forehand.
However, the Hungarian quickly regrouped at the start of the second and broke serve straight away and held for 3-0 with a combination of clean groundstrokes and surprise drop shots. But Auger-Aliassime stayed in touch and refocused from 1-4 down and won every game thereafter, closing out with a forehand winner on match point before celebrating with a clenched fist towards his coaching team.
Looking ahead to the final – which is locked at 2-2 in their head-to-heads – Auger-Aliassime recognised that Sinner was the favourite but was relishing the challenge ahead.
“It’s always good to play him. I feel like he pushes players to be very, very disciplined tactically and to execute their game, you know, almost perfectly in order to win,” he said. “You know, you have to be ready to play your best tennis and to not make cheap mistakes. So, I’m going to try to do that and win tomorrow.”
