Jannik Sinner started his 2024 ATP Finals campaign with a win over Alex de Minaur, who couldn't challenge the Italian.
Sinner has one big advantage over the rest of the field at the ATP Finals in Turin. Since the tournament is held in Italy, he has the support of the home crowd, which showed already in his first match at the tournament.
Naturally, as the World No. 1 player, he is one of the top favorites to win the tournament after coming one match away from the overall victory last year, losing only to Novak Djokovic.
This year, Sinner was drawn against Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, and Alex de Minaur in the round-robin stage, all of which are players that he is capable of beating, and he demonstrated that in his first match.
For De Minaur, this was his debut at the ATP Finals, and in front of a packed stadium, with the vast majority of the fans supporting his opponent, the Australian player didn't have an easy task.
Still, he had the better start in this match. De Minaur broke first, leading 2-1, but he couldn't keep that one-break advantage for too long. Sinner immediately broke back, and he added one more break of serve soon after that to lead already 4-2.
That was a blow that the Australian player couldn't recover from, even though he tried his best. When the World No. 1 player was serving for the set, De Minaur made it to 30-30, but that, of course, wasn't enough to break, as the Italian won the first set 6-3.
In the second set, the lowest-ranked player at the event didn't get to any break points, while his opponent did. Sinner was the better player, mostly overwhelming the Australian from the baseline.
After an hour and 24 minutes of play, Sinner was able to win the match 6-3, 6-4, to secure his first round-robin win at the 2024 ATP Finals. Naturally, the home crowd was delighted, and he was happy for the support.
"It has to be the crowd. The energy. I love playing at home. It’s a huge, huge honor for me. I was just looking forward to it. I didn’t play Rome. My first match in Italy this year. The welcome was very warm. It was amazing."
After that, the Italian player further elaborated on how much it means to him to play in Italy, especially after he was forced to miss the Italian Open in Rome this year.
"After this week, there is still the Davis Cup, but there is no better place to end the year on the circuit. For me, it is a great honor. I did not play Rome, which hurt me a lot, so it is even more beautiful to play on this court. Last year we were very close, this year we will see. We trained very well, I arrived a week early to prepare for this tournament."