The Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz Garfia, who leads the Italian Jannik Sinner by eight victories to five in their ATP tennis matches, will face this Monday the challenge of taking down the Italian 26 matches later on hard courts, as those are the consecutive wins the current world number one has accumulated on the surface where the final of the Cincinnati Masters 1,000 will take place between the two.
The clash on the central court of the Lindner Family Tennis Center will be the fourteenth meeting on the circuit between Alcaraz and Sinner, and that head-to-head record stands at 8-5 in favor of the Spaniard. Seven of those encounters were on hard court with a 5-2 record for Alcaraz, while as far as finals are concerned, the Spanish-Italian duel will take place for the sixth time, and Carlos also leads there with a 3-2 advantage.
Sinner, favorite against Alcaraz in the Cincinnati final
However, Sinner’s great form, especially when playing on hard courts, perhaps makes him the favorite for this commitment. Not in vain, the native of San Candido has 26 consecutive victories on that terrain, having dropped only three sets in those matches, which led him to be champion at the Shanghai Masters 1,000 and the Davis Cup leading Italy, and at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin in 2024, and at the Australian Open, as well as being a finalist in Cincinnati this year.
The Italian’s last defeat on that territory was suffered precisely against the man from Murcia in the final of the Beijing ATP 500 on October 2, 2024, by 6-7 (6), 6-4, and 7-6 (3), and this Monday a title will also be at stake. It will be another final with the two tennis players involved, and the last four head-to-head matches between them took place in the final stage of a tournament, with the most recent ones in Roland Garros and Wimbledon being especially significant with different outcomes. Alcaraz won in Paris coming back from two sets down (4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), and 7-6 (2)) and Sinner also got his revenge by turning the score around in London (6-4, 4-6, 4-6, 4-6, and 4-6).
Yet another battle between the two young players who rule tennis—Jannik, 24 years old and number 1; Carlos, 22 and number 2—now focuses attention in Cincinnati on the eve of the US Open, the fourth and final Grand Slam of a season in which they fight against each other with other rivals watching the duel from a distance.
