Jannik Sinner won the Rolex Paris Masters for the first time with a clinical display of power hitting as he overcame Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 7-6 (4) – a result which also sees him claim back the World Number One ranking from Carlos Alcaraz.
The Italian was simply flawless behind serve, winning a whopping 91% of points on his first delivery alongside 25 winners. He extended his run of indoor hard-court victories to 26 and also won his fifth Masters tournament here without dropping a set.
“It’s huge, honestly, it was such an intense final, and we both knew what was on the line,” said Sinner on court afterwards. “I’m extremely happy, the past couple of months have been amazing. [My team] try to work on things and seeing this result makes me incredibly happy. Another title this year. It’s been an amazing year regardless of what comes in Turin.”
Sinner made a fast start and broke in the first game of the match as Auger-Aliassime battled nerves and made some loose errors. Although he settled down as the set progressed, he was unable to make inroads on his return games as Sinner held easily. The Canadian received a time-violation between points when 3-5 down but kept concentration to hold to force Sinner to serve for the first set after 44 minutes with the help of yet another unreturned.
Auger-Aliassime started far more confidently in the second set going for his groundstrokes with much more confidence, and started to move Sinner around more frequently. He positively held serve until three games all but in the crucial seventh game came under big pressure when he fell 0-30 down and faced the first breakpoints in the set at 15-40. He managed to save both with unreturned serves, but at deuce he threw in another double fault and offered a third breakpoint – which he saved with his sixth ace. He survived the game and took a 4-3 lead.
Sinner later served at 4-5 down and was 40-15 up but was pegged back to deuce and despite cruising on serve through the set, was suddenly two points away from losing it. But he held firm and levelled for five games all.
Sinner began the tie-break with a commanding 13/16 winning record and was never in danger of losing as Auger-Aliassime made two uncharacteristic forehand errors at the wrong moments to give the Italian the lead. Sinner sealed the win on his first match point at 6-4 up with a backhand down the line winner – and closed the gap at the top of the ATP Race to 1,050 points of Alcaraz.
“Congratulations to you and your team, you continue to push me and all the players to improve,” said Auger-Aliassime on court afterwards. “It was a very difficult match, he was serving incredibly well, especially from the first break on. I didn’t have many chances. You have to use the small chances you have, and in the breaker it was just a small mini break, so I’m very happy with how I played there.”
Auger-Aliassime now holds a 90-point lead over Lorenzo Musetti in eighth place in the race to Turin starting on November 9th, and both players are in action next week looking to pick up crucial points to secure their place at the season-ending event.
