SHANGHAI — Prime-ranked Jannik Sinner beat Novak Djokovic in straight units to win the Shanghai Masters on Sunday, giving the Italian his tour-leading seventh title of the season.
Sinner bettered the 24-time Grand Slam champion 7-6 (4), 6-3 in 1 hour, 37 minutes and by no means confronted a break level within the outside hard-court match. Sinner hit eight aces and 22 winners to 4 and 12, respectively, for Djokovic.
Djokovic was aiming for his one centesimal tour-level title and his fifth in Shanghai. Solely Jimmy Connors with 109 titles and Roger Federer with 103 have hit the century mark in males’s tennis.
Sinner turned the primary man to win greater than six titles in a season since Andy Murray received 9 in 2016. He additionally pulled stage in his profession document towards Djokovic, now at 4 wins apiece.
“It was a really robust match, clearly, taking part in towards Novak is among the hardest challenges we have now,” Sinner stated. “It is robust to let you know a secret about [Djokovic] as a result of he does not have any weaknesses. It’s important to try to use the small probabilities that he provides you, however there are usually not many in the course of the match. He’s a legend of our sport, he is very robust to play towards, so I’m very completely satisfied.”
The victory for Sinner got here after he misplaced the ultimate of the China Open in Beijing to Carlos Alcaraz and amid an ongoing doping case.
The 23-year-old Sinner is now 8-2 towards top-five opponents on arduous courts this yr, with each losses coming towards Alcaraz, who watched Sunday’s last from the stands.
The 37-year-old Djokovic was taking part in in China for the primary time in 5 years.
He additionally misplaced to Sinner within the Australian Open semifinals. His solely title for the yr was on the Paris Olympics, the place he beat Alcaraz for the gold medal.
“I believe I performed some actually good tennis, however congratulations to Jannik,” Djokovic stated. “He was simply too good in the present day. Too robust, too quick, properly performed. You are having an unimaginable yr. You deserve this.”
