Carlos Alcaraz snaps Jannik Sinner's 26-match winning streak, wins Rome title

Three times in 2024, Carlos Alcaraz dropped the first set against Jannik Sinner, only to storm back and win the match. On Sunday in Rome, in their 11th career meeting and first with a Masters 1000 trophy on the line, he pulled off a different sort of comeback to claim his seventh career 1000-level title and first at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

After 11 games went by with serve—with just one break point faced by either man combined, which was swatted away by Sinner at 2-2—the Spaniard saved two set points down 6-5, 15-40 before stealing the eventual tiebreak in an absorbing opening frame that lasted more than an hour. He went on to storm through the second set to take the match, 7-6(5), 6-1, and snap Sinner's 26-match winning streak, which dated back to October.

The Italian's last loss? To Alcaraz, in a third-set tiebreaker at the China Open on Oct. 2. Alcaraz now leads the career series 7-4, having won four straight head-to-head matches.

Alcaraz's one-hour and 43-minute victory also makes him the fifth man in history to win all three of the clay-court Masters 1000 tournaments, and deny Sinner the opportunity of becoming the first male Italian champion in Rome since Adriano Panatta nealy a half-century ago. Sinner was playing his first tournament following TK.

The two young rivals now boast the same total of 19 career ATP singles titles—the most for any male player born in the 2000s.

“I’m just really happy to get my first Rome [title], hopefully it’s not going to be the last one,” Alcaraz said on-court afterwards. “The first thing I want to say is that I’m just really happy to see Jannik back at this amazing level. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him coming back after three months and making the final of a Masters 1000 in his first tournament [back]. It’s something insane, so I have to congratulate him.

“I’m proud of myself, with the way I approached the match mentally. Tactically, I think I played pretty well from the first point until the last one. I didn’t do a rollercoaster … I maintained my good level throughout the whole match, so I’m really proud about everything I did today.”

The 70-minute opening set could've had a much different result had Sinner won one of the two set points he held in the 12th game; on the first, he netted a forehand return, and on the second, tried to change direction on the seventh shot of the rally only to missing a down-the-line backhand well wide.

That was one of 30 unforced errors Sinner made in defeat; though Alcaraz hit 31, his 19 winners nearly tripled Sinner's total of seven. Two of his four aces for the match came in the first-set tiebreak to boot.

Read more: Carlos Alcaraz becomes first player to beat Jannik Sinner in straight sets since 2023

After winning Monte Carlo and reaching the final in Barcelona, Alcaraz was forced to withdraw from the Masters 1000 in Madrid due to an adductor injury. But after six more match wins in Rome, he heads to Roland Garros as the defending champion with a 27-2 on clay in the last 12 months.

“All eyes are on Paris right now, on Roland Garros,” Alcaraz said. “Beating Jannik, winning Rome. Both things mix together and give [me] great confidence going to Paris. I always say ‘The final is not about playing, the final is about winning’. I just repeat [that] approach everytime I play a final.”