Carlos Alcaraz has won the Cincinnati Open title in a little more than 20 minutes after top-ranked Jannik Sinner was forced to retire because of illness during the first set.

Meeting for the fourth time this year and the first time since the Wimbledon final, Sinner fell behind 5-0 in the first set with nine unforced errors. He was seen with an icepack on his head during a break and retired after playing just 22 minutes.

Sinner, who turned 24 on Saturday, was on a 12-match winning streak and had won 26 straight matches on hard courts. He was bidding to become the first player to win back-to-back men’s Cincinnati Open titles since Roger Federer in 2014 and 2015.

Alcaraz, who is ranked number two, now holds a 9-5 advantage in his match-ups with the Italian. 

Sinner won in four sets at Wimbledon, while the Spaniard won a five-set thriller at the French Open, while winning in straight sets in the Rome Masters in May.

It was only the third time the top two men’s players have met in the Cincinnati Open final, the last being Novak Djokovic and Alcaraz in 2022 and Federer and Djokovic in 2012.

The Cincinnati Open is considered a tune-up for the US Open, which begins this weekend in New York. 

The past two years, both the men’s and women’s Cincinnati Open champions went on to win the final grand slam tournament of the year.

AP