Cincinnati
Sinner vs. Alcaraz preview: ‘What kind of fun’ to expect from Cincinnati title clash?
Great rivals to meet in a final for the fourth consecutive time
August 17, 2025
Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz will face off Monday in the final at the Cincinnati Open.
By Andy West
For the fourth time in the space of three months, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz will face off with a big title on the line when they clash in the championship match at the Cincinnati Open.
The duo’s red-hot Lexus ATP Head2Head series has already lit up Rome, Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 2025, and Monday’s meeting at 3 p.m. EDT (9 p.m. CEST) in Ohio will once again have fans on tenterhooks waiting to see who can notch the latest success in one of sport’s great ongoing rivalries.
JANNIK SINNER. CARLOS ALCARAZ.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in for a treat 🎭@CincyTennis | #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/tbSSztiWps
— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 17, 2025
The No. 1 and No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings, respectively, both Sinner and Alcaraz have been ‘scintillating in Cincy’ so far this year. Defending champion Sinner has not dropped a set in reaching his eighth ATP Masters 1000 final and enters the match on a 26-match winning streak on hard courts.
“It’s going to be a very, very difficult match, but hopefully it’s going to be, in any case, a good match,” said Sinner after he downed Terence Atmane in the semi-finals. “Hopefully it’s a very high-level match. That’s what for us players is important, but also for the people who are watching… We will see what kind of fun is going to [happen] on Monday.”
Alcaraz may have dropped two sets en route to the title match, but the Spaniard has faced a tougher path than Sinner judging by his opponents’ PIF ATP Rankings. He held off ninth seed Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals before downing third seed Alexander Zverev in the last four, and the seven-time Masters 1000 champion will be full of confidence as he chases his Tour-leading sixth title of 2025.
“I’m excited about it. It’s going to be great,” said Alcaraz ahead of facing Sinner in what will be his seventh consecutive tour-level final. “He won the last one, I won the first two finals, so I think it’s going to be really interesting. It’s the first final [between us this year] on a hard court, so I’m excited about taking that challenge.
“I know that Jannik, without a doubt, is the best player in the world on hard courts and probably on every surface right now, so it’s going to be a great match and I have to be ready for that.”
Watch extended highlights of the Cincinnati semi-finals:
After he let slip three championship points at Roland Garros in July to fall to a fifth consecutive defeat against Alcaraz, Sinner halted the Spaniard’s momentum in their rivalry in style at Wimbledon in early July. The Italian clinched a four-set victory to seal his maiden title at SW19 and reduce his Lexus ATP Head2Head deficit against Alcaraz to 5-8.
For many, Sinner and Alcaraz’s rivalry is defined by the contrast between the former’s consistent all-around elite displays, featuring precise serving and cleanly struck groundstrokes, and the latter’s sublime shotmaking genius and ability to string together unstoppable hot streaks when the stakes are at their greatest. Fans will be eager to see what sort of drama that intriguing combination produces on Monday in Cincinnati.
“The ability of not having any weakness,” said Alcaraz on Saturday, when asked what makes Sinner such a tough opponent. “It is crazy, the way he always plays at his best. It seems like you have to earn every point every game. He makes you suffer since the first point of the match until the last ball. The capacity of being there mentally, point after point, not having up and downs on the match makes him really, really special.”
You May Also Like: Rivalries: Alcaraz vs. Sinner
Both Sinner and Alcaraz have already qualified for the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals, but the latter stands 1,540 points clear of his rival in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin. Sinner has the opportunity to cut Alcaraz’s lead with victory in Cincinnati as both players chase ATP Year-End No. 1 present by PIF honours. Should Sinner triumph and improve his record for the season to 27-3, he would trail Alcaraz by just 1,190 points heading into the US Open.
On the other hand Alcaraz, who is 53-6 for 2025, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, could extend his Live Race lead to 1,890 points by defeating Sinner to clinch his first Cincinnati crown. Victory in Ohio would also banish painful memories for Alcaraz at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, where he held a championship point in the 2023 final before losing to Novak Djokovic in a modern Masters 1000 classic.