Jannik Sinner folds Tommy Paul in comeback to win historic final in Rome
Jannik Sinner suffers at the beginning of the match but then comes back and folds the world number 12, the American Tommy Paul, with the score of 1-6 6-0 6-3 in one hour and 42 minutes of play in the second semifinal of the Internazionali d’Italia at the Foro Italico in Rome and conquers his first final in a Masters 1000 on clay, all after three months of forced stop.
Paul starts the match by holding much more of the groundstroke exchanges than Casper Ruud did yesterday and in fact flies to 3-0 by breaching Sinner in the second game on the second useful ball. Jannik goes completely off the ball and the American extends to 5-0. There comes a roar from the Central when the world number 1 wins the first game but Paul is unimpressed and closes the first set soon after.
It is a different Sinner the one who returns to the court in the second set: break in the second game with a fantastic backhand lungolinea. Paul, however, does not give up and in the next game has two consecutive alle breaks but Sinner wins four consecutive points, three of them with winning first serves. The U.S. seems to collapse and Jannik breaks him two more times, ending the partial at the second set point.
Jannik’s streak continued in the deciding set to nine games in a row: break in the second game, with a double fault by Paul disturbed by the crowd after a missed first serve, and then 3-0, but Jannik occasionally touched his right thigh and after the U.S. finally held serve suffered the counterbreak.
At 3-2, however, fear passes on a resounding long backhand return that gets him his second break point of the game and Paul buries it at the net. Jannik holds the next serve to nil, misses two match points at 5-2, then on his serve the third match point on a long forehand by Paul is the good one.
An Italian has been back in the final at the Foro Italico since 1978, when Adriano Panatta lost in five sets to Bjorn Borg; Panatta himself was the last Italian tennis player to win the Internazionali d’Italia in 1976 in four st against Guillermo Vilas. Tomorrow Jannik will find his true great rival, Carlos Alcarazm, who leads 6-4 in the previous record.
