MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Jannik Sinner sat out the Miami Open a year ago as he served a three-month suspension after testing positive for a banned substance.<\/p>\n
Now the 24-year-old Italian is on the verge of winning his second Miami Open title in three years and becoming the first male to win the \u201cSunshine Double\u2019\u2019 since Roger Federer in 2017.<\/p>\n
The second-ranked Sinner roared into the Miami Open final with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) win over No. 4 Alexander Zverev on Friday night at Hard Rock Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing here and trying to produce some good tennis was my main goal, and standing here again in the final means very much to me,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cIt has been an incredible swing and I couldn\u2019t be better. I\u2019m very happy.”<\/p>\n
Sinner, who served 15 aces, has beaten Zverev seven straight times and has won a record 32 straight sets at an ATP Masters 1000. A hardcourt dynamo, Sinner captured the first leg of the Sunshine Double on March 15 when he topped Daniel Medvedev in Indian Wells.<\/p>\n
Sinner will be a heavy favorite when he faces 21st-seeded Jiri Lehecka in Sunday\u2019s final. Sinner has won 11 straight matches in Miami dating to 2024. He captured the 2024 Miami Open but wasn\u2019t allowed to defend his title.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Zverev was the crowd favorite, particularly drawing loud cheers on points he won in the second set.<\/p>\n
When the 6-foot-6 German got up a break point leading 4-3 in the second set, the stadium was awash in noise. But Zverev couldn\u2019t pull it off, hitting a backhand into the net as Sinner escaped. In the second-set tiebreaker, Sinner lost the first point but pounded two straight aces to lead 2-1 and soon it was over after a Zverev service return sailed long.<\/p>\n
Sinner notched his first-set break at 2-1. Off a long rally, he came in and smashed an overhead winner for break point, then looped a lovely forehand winner down the line to make it 3-1.<\/p>\n
Sinner has a 3-0 career record against Lehecka, beating him last at the 2025 French Open.<\/p>\n
Lehecka advanced to the biggest ATP final of his rising career by routing 28th seed Arthur Fils 6-2, 6-2 in the early semifinal. Lehecka\u2019s Czech countryman, Jakub Mensik, won the Miami Open last year.<\/p>\n
Lehecka will make his first appearance in an ATP Masters 1000 final.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was a great match,\u2019\u2019 Lehecka said. \u201cDefinitely brought me a lot of confidence going into the Sunday final. I must say that it was one of the better matches that I played in my life,\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Lehecka, 24, broke Fils in the opening game and the outcome never seemed in doubt. On match point, Lehecka served an ace and raised his arms. Lehecka finished with six aces, no doubles faults and didn\u2019t face a break point. He hasn\u2019t been broken in the tournament.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/p>\n
Marc Berman, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Jannik Sinner sat out the Miami Open a year ago as he served…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-565915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565915","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=565915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}