Jannik Sinner has finally done it, the Italian is an ATP 1000 champion after he defeated Alex de Minaur in the 2023 Canadian Open final in Toronto.
The Italian has been searching for that elusive big trophy for a while now, and after failing to do it in Miami against Hurkacz in 2021, he finally did it. It's been an interesting event, with many of the top seeds crashing out. Sinner played confident tennis from start to finish and enjoyed a pretty easy draw for much of the event.
His colleagues really helped him out in that regard, and it's why he was heavily favoured against de Minaur in the final. They played twice before the match, and Sinner won both times because the matchup favours him. De Minaur tends to have issues against players that are very good ball strikers, and that's essentially what Sinner does.
He showed that in this match as well hitting the ball pretty well and giving de Minaur trouble. Even though he missed quite a bit, the overwhelming power and ability to hit a winner from any position proved crucial.
De Minaur also failed to create any kind of pressure with his serve, which only contributed to his rather swift downfall. The match lasted about 90 or so minutes with Sinner winning 6-4 6-1. The Italian had 14 winners and 16 unforced errors which really isn't a great stat line but it didn't need to be.
He only needed to be more aggressive than de Minaur and hit more winners. He did that (14>3), and that was the match. The win pushes Sinner to a new career-high of number six and solidifies him as one of the players to watch out for at the US Open. Goran Ivanisevic famously said recently that only Sinner and Djokovic are real threats to Alcaraz in New York.