Success in two sets against the Frenchman: Jannik in absolute control: “It was an excellent day”. Twenty-first consecutive victory for the South Tyrolean
Now the red earth of Caja Magica has become a friend for Jannik Sinner. The world number one is perfectly at ease there and against the rising French star Arthur Fils delivers a masterful performancewith a spectacular first set and a second managed in his own way, with the winning acceleration at the decisive moment. The final score in just under an hour and a half of play it’s a peremptory 6-2,6-4 with very few moments in which the Frenchman is up to par with the South Tyrolean. From match to match Sinner improves, after all he has always said it and reiterates it at the end of the match: “In these tournaments the most difficult matches are the first ones.” When Jannik begins to gain confidence with the system and his shots come out with the naturalness of a champion, all his opponents fall without hope. It happened to the Spanish talent Rafael Jodar, this time it was the turn of the Frenchman Arthur Fils, fresh from the victory in Barcelona and literally hit with balls in the first set.
First final in Madrid
On Sunday Sinner will play his first final in the tournament in the Spanish capital, at least one final in all the first four Masters 1000 of the season, like Federer in 2006 and Nadal in 2011. Meanwhile, with the victory over Fils he updates his fantastic score: twenty-second consecutive victory, the twenty-seventh in a row in Masters tournaments and the goal of winning five consecutive ATP 1000s is getting closer and closer at this point. Even the doubts about the opportunity to play in the Madrid tournament were swept away by a player who amazes every time he takes the field. The more he plays, the more he improves, this is the impression given by Sinner who is now perfectly at ease even on clay, the surface where until last year he seemed to be in difficulty. But Jannik has only one big goal in mind in 2026, the one that he narrowly failed to achieve last year, namely win at Roland Garros. This year in Paris there will be no challenge against his number one rival Carlos Alcaraz and the opportunity is truly enormous for the South Tyrolean who will be a protagonist in Rome before the French Internationals. At the Italian Internationals everyone expects to be able to enter the name of an Italian in the roll of honor just 50 minutes after Adriano Panatta’s victory. It was the winner of Rome in 1976 who hoped for it: “It’s time for an Italian to win in Rome and for my record to change hands.” Rome waits for Sinner and dreams of Hadrian giving him the cup among the marbles of the Foro Italico. Meanwhile there is the final in Madrid against the German Alexander Zverev (number three in the world) who beat the Belgian in two sets (6-1, 6-4). Alexander Vlockx.
Jannik happy
Sinner celebrated more than usual at the end of the match against Fils, because he realized that he had played an excellent match, as he himself admitted: “I think I played a great matchespecially in the first set, in the second there were some more difficulties but I managed the match well. The court conditions were different from the last time, in the first set there was a bit of wind, but then it dropped. I’m very happy to have reached this final because I had never managed to do it in Madrid.”
