\n Defending champion could face Alcaraz in blockbuster final
\n <\/p>\n
Jannik Sinner may not have delivered his sharpest performance on Friday at the Nitto ATP Finals, but the defending champion still produced a straight-sets victory to complete a perfect round-robin in Turin.<\/p>\n
The No. 2 player in the PIF ATP Rankings overcame an up-and-down showing to defeat Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6(3), ending the American\u2019s season in the process. Although Sinner struggled to find his rhythm on serve, he absorbed Shelton\u2019s spirited challenge \u2014 despite the debutant already being eliminated \u2014 to preserve his spotless record this week and extend his indoor winning streak to 29 matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you come here and win all three round-robin matches, you have to play at a very high level, which I\u2019ve done,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cServing very well in important moments has brought me to this point. It was a very special day playing in front of the home crowd, and against Ben it\u2019s always a tough challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he comes up with a huge serve, you cannot do a lot, so you have to accept it. My mental aspect [has been] great until now, so let\u2019s see what\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinner had already secured the top spot in the Bjorn Borg Group, and with Carlos Alcaraz advancing, a potential championship-match showdown between the two rivals now looms if both win their respective semi-finals. Sinner will face Alex de Minaur, while Alcaraz \u2014 who topped the Jimmy Connors Group \u2014 awaits the winner of Friday evening\u2019s winner-takes-all clash between Alexander Zverev and Felix Auger-Aliassime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy for him,\u201d Sinner said of De Minaur, who fell to a crushing three-set defeat to Lorenzo Musetti on Tuesday night. \u201cWhen you have these kinds of losses, it\u2019s tough. So props to him to come back with an incredible performance against Taylor [Fritz]. I have to be very careful, because he doesn\u2019t have a lot to lose\u2026 I have a lot to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
In their fourth meeting of 2025, Shelton rebounded from a nervous start with a promising second-set surge, powered by his explosive serve. The 23-year-old dropped just two of 18 service points through the first nine games of the set, according to Infosys ATP Stats.<\/p>\n
But, after saving a match point on serve at 4-5, Shelton was then overpowered in the tie-break as Sinner seized control with a series of clean approaches to seal his eighth consecutive Lexus ATP Head2Head win against the American (8-1). The 24-year-old Italian, last year\u2019s champion in Turin, has now won eight consecutive matches at the season finale without dropping a set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Defending champion could face Alcaraz in blockbuster final Jannik Sinner may not have delivered his sharpest performance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-284743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}