Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev will face each other in the Mutua Madrid Open final on Sunday afternoon. And they may face each other again, again, and again this spring and summer with Carlos Alcaraz currently sidelined by a wrist injury.
Sinner and Zverev have already squared off 13 times in their careers, with Sinner dominating the head-to-head series 9-4. The Italian has won eight straight meetings since he once trailed Zverev 4-1 in the H2H. He also won 12 sets in a row at Zverev’s expense dating back to this past fall in Vienna, with just one of those 12 being decided by a tiebreaker.
Sinner lost his opening set of the fortnight to Benjamin Bonzi, but he bounced back to win that second-round contest 6-7(6), 6-1, 6-4. It has since been one-way traffic for the world No. 1, who dismissed Elmer Moller, Cameron Norrie, Rafael Jodar, and Arthur Fils. Jodar at least managed to push Sinner to a second-set tiebreaker.
Zverev does have one thing working in his favor: the setting. Sinner has never won this tournament, whereas the German has been an absolute force at the Caja Magica throughout his career. He is 30-6 all time at this event with two titles (2018, 2021) and one runner-up performance(2022). He is back in another Madrid final after ousting Mariano Navone, Terence Atmane, Jakub Mensik, Flavio Cobolli, and Alexander Blockx.
If there was any place where Zverev was going to beat Sinner, it would probably be Madrid. Unfortunately for the world No. 3…there probably isn’t any place.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.