Four seasonal titles, the 14th in his career for Sinner who won the Halle tournament by beating his friend Hurkacz (his doubles partner this week) 7-6 7-6, a score that could have been even clearer for the number 1 in the world, especially in the second set.
He is the fourth Italian ever to win a tournament on grass (Seppi, Sonego and Berrettini did it before him) and he is the eighth player to win the first tournament of his career as number 1.
Sinner confirms himself as ruthless in the finals in this 2024, bringing the score in the last act of a tournament to 4 out of 4 in this splendid year: 38th victory in 41 matches, a statistic that says a lot about this 2024.
Hurkacz does not disappoint in front of his most title opponent, but he can do nothing against the consistency shown by Jannik, who does not give an inch today on the pitch: the Pole up to now had won 4 tie breaks out of 4 in the tournament and today he lost two straight.
The first set is dominated by serves even though both players have a break point at the start of the match (in the third and fourth games): in both cases the server did well in not giving the returner a chance.
Without too many shocks we reach the tie break which sees Jannik’s extension, rising to 5-2: a forehand error allows Hubi to return who, having canceled a set point with an ace at 5-6, has the ball to go ahead by a set.
Well done to Sinner in canceling it without giving a chance to the Pole who, after having canceled a second set point again with the first winning serve, gives up the serve in the 17th point thanks to a great point in defense by Jannik, who closes with the winning backhand.
The world number 1 does not tremble as he closes the first set tie break 10-8.
Jannik seems more and more centered, he doesn’t allow himself the slightest mental break and starts to attack the Pole’s serve which he is always forced to chase.
Every service game for Hurkacz is an endless battle but he manages to avoid the blue’s break by canceling two break points in the opening game and recovering several times from disadvantaged situations: for his part Jannik does not concede anything on serve, in fact he will finish the set with 100% points with the first serve and only 4 points lost with the second serve (including a double fault).
We get to the tie break again which however this time is not fought at all, on the contrary, it is a photocopy of what was seen in the set: from 1-1 Sinner scores 4 points in a row and closes with a winning serve for 7 points to 2 conquering the second ATP 500 of the season, which allows him to move up in the rankings (+1620 over Alcaraz) and get closer to the threshold of 10,000 points (9890).
There could not have been better preparation in view of Wimbledon for Sinner who will start, if not as the absolute favourite, then at least on par with Alcaraz: all the others seem to be very distant from the top two in the ranking on the starting grid.
Positive week also for Hurkacz who gains two positions in the ranking (nr.7) so as to be able to avoid the first two until the quarter-finals: the feeling is that among the players in the second row, in a week’s time, behind the two super favorites , there will also be Polish.
