The top two players in the world are set to face each other in the Australian Open men’s final. The number one seed Jannik Sinner of Innichen, Italy is facing the number two seed, Alexander Zverev of Hamburg, Germany on Sunday.
In the semifinals on Friday, Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the seventh seed, and 10-time Australian Open champion, withdrew after the first set against Zverev. The 27-year-old German won the first set tiebreak, 7-5.
Sinner then beat American Ben Shelton, the 21st seed, in straight sets 7-6, 6-2, 6-2. It was a rather slow start for Sinner as he was broken by Shelton twice in the first set. But Sinner bounced back, and dominated the first set tiebreak 7-2. Double faults were a key statistic as Sinner had zero and Shelton had six. Sinner also broke Shelton six times and won 29 more points.
Sinner is looking for his third major title after winning the 2024 Australian Open and 2024 United States Open. Zverev has been to two grand slam finals, but lost the 2020 United States Open to Dominic Thiem of Austria, and the 2024 French Open final to Carlos Alcaraz of Spain.
Head-to-head, Zverev has won four of six matches. Zverev won the semifinal of Cologne in 2020 (7-6, 6-3), the fourth round of the United States Open in 2021 (6-4, 6-4. 7-6), the quarterfinals of Monte Carlo in 2022 (5-7, 6-3, 7-6) and the fourth round of the United States Open in 2023 (6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3). Sinner’s wins came in the fourth round of the 2020 French Open (6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3) and the semifinals of Cincinnati in 2024 (7-6, 5-7, 7-6).
Earlier in the tournament, it looked like Sinner was struggling physically in his win over Holger Rune of Denmark in the fourth round. However, the last two matches he has seemed very healthy.
