Rome, final: Jannik Sinner fights back, but first set goes to Carlos Alcaraz
After a real sporting struggle that lasted 70 minutes, it was Carlos Alcaraz who won the first set of the final of the Internazionali d’Italia 2025 against Jannik Sinner: 7-6(5) the score, with the match always in balance and the need to go to the tie-break to find the winner of the fraction. For the South Tyrolean there’s the regret of two untaken set points at 6-5, but against an opponent of this caliber it is still not easy to win even a single point.
Jannik Sinner made it to the finals in Rome for the first time in his career, succeeding among other things after being out of action for three months (two of them without actually being able to practice on the court with a racket) due to the suspension agreed upon with Wada for the so-called “Clostebol“ case.
The South Tyrolean champion, number 1 in the world continuously since June 10, 2024, defeated Mariano Navone 6-3, 6-4 in the second round (he had missed the first thanks to a ‘bye’ to be among the top seeds), Jesper de Jong 6-4, 6-2 in the third round, Francisco Cerundolo 7-6(2), 6-3 in the round of 16, Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1 in the quarters and Tommy Paul 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 in the semifinals.
Before today, Sinner has played on clay only one other final, in 2022 in Umag, Croatia: also on that occasion the opponent had been Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, against whom the current No. 1 in the ATP rankings managed to win in three sets, coming back from 7-6(5) in the first set with a double 6-1.
