Sinner crushes Zverev to defend Australian Open crown

[Pelican Press 0]

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Sinner crushes Zverev to defend *********** Open crown

Jannik Sinner has entered Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer-like territory with a clinical straight-sets *********** Open final triumph over Alexander Zverev.

Sinner denied Zverev an elusive maiden major while enhancing his own growing grand slam stature with a steely-eyed 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 victory over the ******* at Melbourne Park on Sunday night.

In defending the trophy he claimed last year for the first time and adding to his 2024 US Open crown, Italy’s new tennis trailblazer becomes the first player since Djokovic in 2016 to win three successive hard-court grand slams.

Seemingly setting Sinner on the path to greatness, Federer is the only other man in the 57-year open era to have accomplished the feat.

But while the 23-year-old marched relentlessly halfway towards completing a Djokovic-like rare non-calendar-year grand slam sweep with his latest success, Sinner’s participation in the next major remains in doubt.

The world No.1 faces a potential ban of at least one year when he fronts the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland April for alleged doping.

The World Anti Doping Authority is challenging a decision last year by the International Tennis Integrity Agency not to suspend Sinner for what the TIA deemed to be accidental contamination by a banned anabolic steroid in March.

That closed-doors hearing will take place in Lausanne on April 16-17, casting a cloud over Sinner’s immediate future – and his quest for more grand slam spoils in 2025 and possibly 2026.

For now, though, tennis’s most dominant force is very much on top of the world after putting the doping allegation dramas aside to sweep to a third grand slam title in an utterly dominant 12 months.

In so doing, the top seed ensured Zverev remains the sport’s most unfulfilled talent after denying the world No.2 a desperately sought first slam of his own.

Zverev has now lost all three of his grand slam finals, having blown a two-set lead against Dominic Thiem at the 2020 US Open, and letting a two-sets-to-one advantage slip against Carlos Alcaraz at last year’s French Open.

Little wonder why Zverev, sensing his latest opportunity slipping away, smashed his racquet in anguish after losing the second-set tiebreaker on Sunday night.

Even worse for Zverev, Sinner was seen clutching his left hamstring late in the second set of the first Open final pitting the world’s top two players against each other since 2019.

The ******* must have known he’d have had a chance, had he extended the final to at least four sets.

Alas, Sinner breaking Zverev for a second time in the sixth game proved the beginning of the end.

Showing no let-up, Sinner served out the match in two hours and 42 minutes to also join Federer (Wimbledon 2003 against Mark Philippoussis) and Rafael Nadal (US Open 2017) as only the third man this century to win a grand slam final without even offering up a solitary break-point chance.

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#Sinner #crushes #Zverev #defend #*********** #Open #crown

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