Casper Ruud promised to be dangerous against Jannik Sinner in the final of the Rome Masters. The Norwegian is a clay-court specialist who has 12 titles on clay, and he was back to playing in his best form. Sinner was trying to capture the crown of his home-nation Masters, the last title he needed to have won all nine Masters 1000s.
In the end, Sinner would defeat Ruud 6-4, 6-4. The Italian has dropped just three sets in the last six Masters events.
Ruud certainly came out hot. He held serve and then got a break. Before the Italian crowd, fully and logically favoring Sinner, could absorb what was happening, the ATP No. 1 was already down two games. Just as bad, he struggled to land his first serve through much of the first set.
Jannik Sinner defeats Casper Ruud to win the Italian Open
But Sinner being Sinner, he equaled what Ruud had done quickly, evening the match at 2-all. At 4-all, the Italian appeared to have figured out Ruud's game plan and adjusted. He hit several drop shots, two that the Norwegian didn't even pretend to chase, and Sinner got a break.
By the end of the set, he was landing his first serve, and he was playing at his best by the end of set one, winning it 6-4. Ruud, however, is no stranger to high-stress matches, so the outcome was not yet assumed.
That might have changed in the opening game of the set, though. Sinner got a break and was peaking in form. At his best level, arguably no one on the ATP can match him, not even Carlos Alcaraz. As the Italian was landing more of his first serves, Ruud's challenge to him in those games was becoming tougher.
Two questions remained. One, would Casper Ruud regain the form he had early in the first set and get some control of the match back? He would also have to deal with Sinner's uptick in form.
The other question was whether Sinner would give in to nerves. He wasn't playing some random tournament, but one he had never won, and one no Italian man had won in Rome in 50 years. The weight of the pressure might have been too much for many players.
Ruud got another break point at 3-4 in the second set, but Sinner fought it off with a powerful serve and volley. He held with confidence to get within a game of the title. He would take the Rome Masters crown by holding at love to win the second set 6-4. He simply covered the court too well and played too intelligently to be beaten.
By winning the Italian Open. Jannik Sinner is the youngest player ever to win all nine Masters 1000s (he is 24 years old), and broke his own record by winning his sixth straight Masters. The next step for him is to win the French Open, the only major he has yet to win. He will be the heavy favorite in Paris.
Add us as a preferred source on Google