Jannik Sinner, the numbers of the (almost) perfect match

“It is the closest thing to perfection I have ever seen, at least as a player facing another player”. This is how Casper Ruud commented on Jannik Sinner&#8217s performance as he annihilated him 60 61 after 64 minutes, in the most one-sided semifinal in a Masters 1000 since 1990, when this category of tournaments was introduced on the calendar. “In the first four games I made maybe a couple of free errors with my forehand, but everything that came out of his racquet, in those games and throughout the match, seemed to be going over a hundred an hour. It’s impressive” said Ruud, the first Top 10 to win no more than one game in a match since the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals.

It is not only the scoreline that speaks of a virtually perfect match by Sinner, who gave a clear indication of both intentions right away: in fact, he won 16 of the first 18 points played. Tennis Viz, which processes ATP data collected by Tennis Data Innovations, put the quality of Jannik’s overall performance against Ruud at 9.62, on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s the highest value achieved by a player between 2024 and 2025 to date.

If we look at 2025 alone, another Italian is in second place, Matteo Berrettini, who achieved a rating of 9.29 against Gael Monfils in Dubai.

During the match, he won 86 percent of points in which he was in an attacking position and 48 percent of those in which he was forced into defense. The Norwegian never found a way to counter the total superiority of the world No. 1. The quality of Sinner’s strokes, which the’algorithm obtains by taking into account parameters such as width, depth, height, and impact on the opponent, reached excellent levels: 8.2 on serve, 8.8 in response, 9.3 with the forehand, 9.4 with the backhand. All this against an opponent who, in terms of strokes, did not do badly, on the contrary.

What Sinner is accustoming his fans to is an exceptional combination of speed and control. Against Ruud he fielded 78 forehands out of 85 and 75 backhands out of 80. But you can&#8217t say he tried to play percentage tennis or was limited to waiting for the error. His rights traveled at an average of 130 kmh, his backhands at 123, with a clear gap from the average speeds he was able to reach the effectively impotent Norwegian. This also explains Sinner’s very clear superiority especially in exchanges lasting more than five strokes. With these average speeds, putting the opponent in a condition not to harm, closing him at the’corner, is objectively easier.

But there is one element that gives us even more clearly the picture of Sinner&#8217s superiority against Ruud. And it is the “Sinner versus Sinner” comparison with his average standards over the past 52 weeks (in orange in the graph). His effectiveness in exchanges from the back, and in going from defense to counterattack to winning the point (48 percent), along with 32 percent of points played on offense, give the measure of a player totally at ease in all areas of the court. A virtually perfect player.