Sinner dominates in Montpellier to win his first title of 2023

Jannik Sinner completed his dominant journey at the 2023 Montpellier Open with a final victory over Maxime Cressy.

Early at the ATP 250 event in France, the young Italian got a bit lucky as his second-round opponent, Marton Fucsovics, withdrew from the event, so Sinner could start the tournament in the quarter-finals.

That's something extremely rare, and also something that can happen only to seeded players at lower-tier events, as usually, those tournaments offer a first-round bye.

Since Sinner was the second seed in Montpellier, he was supposed to start in the second round of the tournament, but because of Fucsovics's withdrawal, he started in the quarter-finals.

For example, if any first-round opponent of any of the players in the draw withdrew, the player would be replaced by a lucky loser, instead of giving the other player a walkover. But since Fucsovics won his first-round match, he couldn't be replaced, and Sinner made it right to the quarter-finals.

He then defeated compatriot Lorenzo Sonego and French prodigy Arthur Fils to book the final spot at the event. And seemed that it would be a battle of the two highest-seeded players at the 2023 Montpellier Open in the final, but Maxime Cressy stunned Holger Rune, and he faced off against the World No. 17 in the final instead.

Probably no one in the crowd was surprised that the first set reached a tie-break. Both players had break points, but none of them could use their chances, so a tie-break had to decide the first set.

Sinner saved all of his firepower for this crucial game and won it 7-3 to keep his perfect score in Montpellier, as he had yet to drop a set at that point.

In the second set, Sinner managed to break his opponent and then nothing could stop him from winning 7-6(3), 6-3 in an hour and 36 minutes and lifting his first trophy of the 2023 season.