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Sinner Stops Djokovic in Shanghai Final for Seventh Title of 2024

Italy’s Jannik Sinner (R) speaks while holding his winner’s trophy following victory against Serbia’s Novak Djokovic (L) in their men’s singles final match at the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament in Shanghai on October 13, 2024. Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images

Jannik Sinner slammed his eighth ace to realize seventh heaven.

World No. 1 Sinner defeated Novak Djokovic 7-6(4), 6-3 in today’s Rolex Shanghai Masters final to capture his seventh championship of the season.

The 23-year-old Sinner made history as the youngest man to win Shanghai, while denying four-time champion Djokovic’s bid for a 100th career championship.

Sinner collected his 17th career championship in style as he becomes the first man to win three Masters 1000 championships in the same season since king of clay Rafael Nadal did it back in 2018.

“It was a very tough match obviously playing against Novak, he’s one of the toughest challenges we have,” said Sinner, who improved to 17-5 in career finals. “I’m obviously very, very happy about how I handled the situation. I mean he was serving great the first set. I really couldn’t find a way to break him.

“I played a very good breaker in the first set, which gave me the confidence to start off well in the second set. Obviously, I’m very happy about the performance throughout this whole tournament—it’s a very special one.”

It is Sinner’s his fourth career ATP Masters 1000 championship, including Masters crowns in Miami and Cincinnati this season.

Sinner scored his career-best 65th win of the season to level his head-to-head with Djokovic at four wins apiece.

A day after Sinner secured the season-ending world No. 1 ranking, he put more distance between himself and Djokovic defeating the Grand Slam king for the fourth time in their last five matches. Sinner is now 8-2 vs. Top-5 opponents on hard court this season.

Today, Djokovic held with more control in the opening set until Sinner took charge in the tiebreaker. Sinner smoked eight aces, including whipping an ace on championship point and did not face a break point in a 97-minute final victory.

“I’ve had lots of success on Chinese soil in my career and haven’t played in China for five years, so I missed it,” Djokovic said. “I’m really glad that I came this year. I think that I played some really good tennis.

“I mean obviously congratulations to Jannik. He was just too good today. Too strong, too fast and well done, you’re having an incredible year. You deserve this… Also, it’s nice to see Roger [Federer in the crowd]. I’m not used to seeing you on the stands, I wish you were here on the court playing with us. It’s probably the first time that I’m playing in front of you so I had added pressure.”