Jannik Sinner won his second consecutive Australian Open championship on Sunday, without facing a single break point and using his complete game to overcome and frustrate Alexander Zverev with a 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory in the final.
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Sinner, a 23-year-old Italian, is the youngest man to leave Melbourne Park with the trophy two years in a row since Jim Courier in 1992-93.
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Sinner rose to number 1 last June, staying there every week since then, and the gap between him and number 2, Zverev, was as pronounced as it can be seen in the Rod Laver Arena. This was the first Australian Open final between men at number 1 and number 2 since 2019, when number 1 Novak Djokovic defeated number 2 Rafael Nadal, also in straight sets.
An example of Sinner's dominance since the beginning of last season: He has won three out of the five majors, including the US Open in September, and his record in that period is 80-6 with a total of nine tournament titles. His current unbeaten streak spans 21 matches, dating back to last year.
The only thing that has marred the last 12 months for Sinner, it seems, is a doping case in which he was cleared by a ruling that was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency. He tested positive for a minimal amount of an anabolic steroid twice last March but attributed it to accidental exposure involving two members of his team who have since been dismissed. Sinner was initially cleared in August; a hearing on the WADA appeal is scheduled for April.
While Sinner became the eighth man in the open-era tournament format (which began in 1968) to start his career 3-0 in Grand Slam finals, Zverev is the seventh to be 0-3, adding this defeat to those at the US Open 2020 and the French Open 2024.
Those two previous defeats happened in five sets. This match was not as close. Not at all.