Jannik Sinner with Miami Open trophy
The Italian tennis star Jannik Sinner has claimed his career-high second spot in the latest ATP world rankings after winning the Miami Open title.
At the Miami Open final, Sinner defeated Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 6-1 to win his first trophy at the hard-court event and his second ATP Masters 1000 crown overall.
The Italian suffered final defeats in South Florida in 2021 and 2023 but has shown he is a different beast in 2024, entering Sunday’s final holding a 21-1 record on the year.
The 22-year-old ensured history did not repeat itself on Sunday and produced a clean and aggressive performance to clinch his third title of the season and displace Carlos Alcaraz from the second spot in the ATP Rankings.
“I’m really proud obviously about the result. I started off struggling a little bit this week. I haven’t had so much time to adapt on this court, so I knew in the beginning that it’s going to be tough. As the tournament went on, I felt better and better,” Sinner said after his victory.
“Today’s performance was really, really good. I’m just proud of how I handled the situation. It was not easy, so it was a very, very good two weeks,” he added.
With this, Sinner became the first Italian tennis player to reach the Top 2 in either ATP or WTA rankings history. He was already the first to reach No. 3 – he achieved that last month after winning the ATP 500 in Rotterdam.
Meanwhile, he is also the first Italian player ever, male or female, to win the Miami Open. He was already the only Italian to even reach the final, having finished runner-up twice previously – in 2021 to Hubert Hurkacz and last year to Daniil Medvedev.
With his Miami Open title, Sinner also became the first Italian player ever to win multiple Masters 1000 titles. This is his second Masters 1000 title, after conquering Canada last summer.
The only other Italian player to win a Masters 1000 title is Fabio Fognini, who won Monte Carlo in 2019.
Sinner, who is in sensational form in 2024, has now won more tour-level titles than any other Italian player, male or female, in the Open Era. This is the 13th ATP title of his career, surpassing Sandra Cecchini, who won 12 WTA titles in her career. Sinner already held the men’s record.
After the Miami Open final, Sinner has now won 25 of his past 26 matches and key to his success has been staying in the moment.
“Staying in the present moment. What it has been, it has been. I just try to improve… And also enjoying the moment. This is a special moment,” Sinner said.
“You never know if this is the last time or not. So you have to enjoy this for one day, and now a new chapter is coming, clay-court [season] is coming, so completely different. Let’s see how I will play from now on. But for sure, the hard-court season until now has been very good,” he added.
