{"id":600209,"date":"2026-04-11T14:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/600209\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T14:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:36:12","slug":"tennis-atp-rolex-monte-carlo-masters-2026-sinner-gets-past-zverev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/600209\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis, ATP \u2013 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters 2026: Sinner gets past Zverev"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters \u2022Semi-final \u2022
\n Completed\n <\/p>\n


\n See draw<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Jannik Sinner reached his first Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters final by defeating Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-4<\/a> in 82 minutes on Saturday, extending the most one-sided active rivalry in the men\u2019s game and reaching his fourth consecutive Masters 1000 final.<\/p>\n

The match was decided before Zverev had found his footing. In the opening four games, the German won just seven points. Sinner broke twice \u2013 and did so without offering a single break point in return, a pattern he maintained across the entire match.<\/p>\n

By the time Zverev had played eight service games, he had won only four points on his first serve. The forehand \u2013 hit flat, early and with rare precision throughout \u2013 produced eight winners in the first set alone, including the set point down the line. Sinner shortened the rallies deliberately, refusing to allow the match to develop into the grinding baseline exchanges that Zverev had used to push him in previous weeks.<\/p>\n

Sinner\u2019s most complete match this week<\/p>\n

It was a considered tactical adjustment. Earlier in the tournament, against Tomas Machac<\/a> on Thursday, Sinner had been drawn into exactly those long exchanges, dropped a set and admitted fatigue. Against Felix Auger-Aliassime on Friday<\/a> he had been cleaner.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, against Zverev on clay \u2013 a surface on which the German had beaten him in their only previous meeting, a Monte-Carlo quarterfinal four years ago \u2013 Sinner produced his most complete performance of the week.<\/p>\n

Sinner has now won 21 consecutive matches at Masters 1000 level. Only Nadal (23), Federer (29) and Djokovic (31) have achieved a longer run in series history. The win also makes him the first player since Djokovic in 2015 to reach the finals of Indian Wells, Miami and Monte-Carlo in the same season. He has won 38 of his last 40 matches overall.<\/p>\n

This was the fourth consecutive Masters 1000 semifinal between Sinner and Zverev \u2013 Paris, Indian Wells, Miami, and now Monaco \u2013 a frequency matched only by Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic in 2015. Sinner has won all four, conceding a total of one set. The head-to-head now stands at 9-4 in his favour.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Zverev struggling to find his aggressive game<\/p>\n

Zverev had arrived in the semifinal having worked considerably harder to get there \u2013 three sets against both Cristian Garin and Jo\u00e3o Fonseca compared to Sinner\u2019s smoother passage. After the Fonseca match, he had acknowledged struggling to find his aggressive game on clay.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, that difficulty was compounded by an opponent who gave him no time, no rhythm and no weak ball to attack. Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg \u2013 two of the sport\u2019s greatest serve-and-volley champions \u2013 were in the stands to watch the baseline mastery of a different era entirely.<\/p>\n

Sinner awaits the winner of the Alcaraz-Vacherot semifinal in Sunday\u2019s final. If Alcaraz comes through, it will be the first meeting between the two in 2026, a final that the draw has pointed to all week, and one that would carry the No. 1 ranking in its stakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters \u2022Semi-final \u2022 Completed See draw Jannik Sinner reached his first Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters final by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-600209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}