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First set: Sinner 1-1 De Minaur* (*denotes next server)
Ooohs and aaaahs from the crowd on a lovely first point, with slicing and dicing and drop shots and lobs and eventually a De Minaur winner, which lands bang on the baseline. Even the Italians are applauding the Australian. “Just another 80 of those will do,” quips Laura Robson on commentary. And look, look: 0-15 morphs into 0-30 and 0-40. Sinner hasn’t been broken this week at all. He fends off the first bp with an unreturned serve; De Minaur slaps into the net on the second. Another snarling serve and it’s deuce. Then advantage Sinner and game. Sinner maintains his perfect record.
First set: Sinner* 0-1 De Minaur (*denotes next server)
Sinner claims the first victory of the day as he wins the toss. As if he needs any extra help. The world No 2 elects to receive and swiftly advances to 15-30. The pair trade cross-court forehand after cross-court forehand … and De Minaur nets. His fiancee, British player Katie Boulter, is already hanging her head in the stands. But De Minaur saves the first break point with a forehand winner, and he’s always in control of the second break point, and he finishes things off when he advances to the net and Sinner buckles under the pressure. Deuce. Advantage De Minaur. Deuce. Advantage De Minaur. Deuce. Advantage De Minaur. Game De Minaur. But already the challenge facing De Minaur this afternoon has been underlined.
Henman’s game plan for De Minaur is to have a high percentage of first serves, take risks, finish some points at the net, play the match of his life and hope Sinner has an off-day. So Tim’s not asking for much then …
The stands are teeming with orange wigs, Italian flags and the obligatory die-hard carrots as Sinner makes his entrance, a minute or so after De Minaur. De Minaur does, at least, already have experience of being the villain in the eyes of this Italian crowd, having played Lorenzo Musetti in the group stage. He suffered a heartbreaking defeat then, blowing a 5-3 lead in the third set, but his gutsy win over Taylor Fritz secured his place in the last four by the narrowest of margins: just one game.
Tim Henman’s been speaking to Sinner. “He was in a very tough place a couple of days ago,” Sinner says of De Minaur losing his opening two matches, “but then he had one of his best wins of the year [against Taylor Fritz]. I have to be careful. He doesn’t have anything to lose. I have a lot to lose.”
Sky Sports are currently crunching the numbers of the Sinner v De Minaur head-to-head. They can’t even list all of Sinner’s 12 victories on the screen, but it still puts into sharp focus the task facing De Minaur this afternoon. He’s facing not only his nemesis, the defending champion who hasn’t dropped a set this week, and the Australian Open and Wimbledon winner, but also the 12,000-strong pro-Sinner crowd. So is there any way De Minaur can come through this? Erm, probably only by playing the match of his life. And even if he does that, his big heart and endless running likely won’t be enough to counter Sinner’s destructive power and relentless precision.
Already today in the doubles, Britain’s Henry Patten and Finland’s Harri Heliovaara have taken out the home favourites Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori, 6-4, 6-3, to reach the final for the first time. Last year’s Wimbledon winners could face the reigning Wimbledon champions tomorrow, because Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool play in tonight’s semi, which is an all-British affair with Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski. So it’s guaranteed that three of the four finalists will be British.
And one that definitely won’t get De Minaur in the mood:
To get you in the mood:
Preamble
All roads in Turin seem to be leading to a Carlos Alcaraz v Jannik Sinner final and the latest chapter in what’s already becoming one of tennis’s greatest rivalries, just as all roads at every event they’ve both entered this year have led to another title for the Sincaraz collection.
The numbers that sum up their supremacy are ubiquitous: they’ve faced each other in the past three grand slam finals (the escape from Alcaraz in that French Open final the pick of the lot), won a combined 13 tournaments in 2025 and shared the past eight major titles between them. But one eye-catching stat has been less told: Alexander Zverev, the world No 3, is closer in ranking points to the world No 1000 than he is to Sinner, the No 2. No one can get near them. The chasing pack aren’t in the same universe, even though they’re playing the same sport.
So where does this leave Alex De Minaur and Felix Auger-Aliassime today? At least Auger-Aliassime knows what it’s like to beat Alcaraz, having done so in three of their seven meetings, though the last of those wins was in 2022, when Alcaraz was still working on becoming a smiling assassin. But De Minaur has lost to Sinner in all 12 of their previous matches. The Demon said he’d banished his demons after defeating Taylor Fritz for his first ever win at the ATP Finals on Thursday, but how can he not be haunted by his record against the Italian going into their semi-final? Clutching at the positives for the Australian, at least he’s got nothing to lose. Sinner, in front of his home crowd, is expected to win with ease – that’s the pressure that being the defending champion, with 29 victories in a row on indoor hard courts, brings.
Sinner and De Minaur are first up at 2.30pm local time/1.30pm GMT, with Alcaraz and Auger-Aliassime to come at 8.30pm/7.30pm. I’ll be here for both matches, so let’s hope I’m still standing by the end; barring the tennis world being knocked off its axis before then, Sinner and Alcaraz will be too.
