ROME
\nJannik Sinner comfortably won the Italian Open here on Sunday after beating Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 to claim a record-extending sixth consecutive Masters 1000 tournament victory.
\nWorld number one Sinner has now completed the \u2018Golden Masters\u2019 by winning all of the ATP\u2019s top-ranked events after becoming the first Italian champion at the Foro Italico since Adriano Panatta 50 years ago.
\nOnly Novak Djokovic had previously won all nine Masters 1000 events before Sunday, but there was little doubt about Sinner triumphing over the last 10 days.
\nSinner heads into Roland Garros, which starts next weekend, on a 29-match winning streak after beating Ruud for a fifth time in as many meetings.
\nAnd his run of match wins is even longer, 34, in Masters 1000 tournaments, another record he has established in a season in which he has dominated the men\u2019s tour.
\nSinner can complete his collection of Grand Slams at Roland Garros and with his great rival Carlos Alcaraz out of action few would bet against him securing a first title on Paris clay.
\nRuud has won more matches and tournaments on clay than anyone else on the men\u2019s tour since the start of 2020 \u2014 last winning a Masters 1000 event at Madrid last year \u2014 but he couldn\u2019t beat Sinner for the first time.
\nNorwegian Ruud had never won a set against Sinner in any of their previous four meetings, but immediately improved on the fearful hammering he received here from the Italian last year by winning the first two games.
\nBut Sinner broke straight back and took the lead in the match after an opening set in which world number 25 held his own against a player he\u2019d previous said \u201ccannot lose\u201d.
\nSinner then broke Ruud again at the start of the second set and from there it was just a matter of time before he won the championship, even though Ruud performed with credit in front of a packed centre court crowd.
\nIt was a good day for Italian tennis as Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori also won the men\u2019s doubles title, beating second seeds Marcel Grano\u00adllers and Horacio Zeballos 7-6 (10\/8), 6-7 (3\/7), 10-3.
\nThird Rome title for Svitolina
\nOn Saturday, Elina Svitolina won the Italian Open after beating Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-7 (3\/7), 6-2 to claim her third Rome title.
\nUkraine\u2019s Svitolina had not claimed a WTA 1000 title since her last victory at the Foro Italico eight years ago but prevailed over the ever-erratic Gauff to claim her 20th tournament triumph.
\nSaturday\u2019s win over Gauff was her third in a row against a player in the top four of the world rankings \u2014 including Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina \u2014 ahead of the French Open.
\nAmerican star Gauff was aiming to become the first American to win in the Italian capital since Serena Williams in 2016, but the problems with her serve which have so long dogged her game began to resurface on centre court.
\nHer serve was broken three times by Svitolina on her way to losing the first set, thanks in part to four double-faults, two of which came in the game which allowed her opponent to move ahead in the match.
\nAt 5-4 down she hit a bizarre second serve which flew into the wrong side of the court, before gifting Svitolina the advantage by another double-fault at set point.
\nA livid Gauff then smacked herself on the head with her own racket before storming down the tunnel, emerging shortly afterwards to have a heated discussion with her coach Jean-Christophe Faurel.
\nThat talking to seemed to turn things around as Gauff got a handle on her serve in a hard-fought second set which featured some fun rallies, particularly as she won the tie-break.
\nBut two more breaks of serve cost Gauff her first tournament win of the season with her French Open title defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROME Jannik Sinner comfortably won the Italian Open here on Sunday after beating Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 to claim a record-extending sixth consecutive Masters 1000 tournament victory. World number one Sinner has now completed the \u2018Golden Masters\u2019 by winning all of the ATP\u2019s top-ranked events after becoming the first Italian champion at the Foro Italico …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97962,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97952\/revisions\/97962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}