Italy’s Jannik Sinner defeated Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-1 on Sunday to win the National Bank Open for his first career Masters 1000 series title.
The seventh-seeded Sinner used his punishing ground strokes to great effect, forcing his unranked opponent to play defence for most of the match at Sobeys Stadium in Toronto.
Sinner closed out the opening set with a service break and kept the pressure on in the second set to close out the win in 89 minutes.
It was his second ATP Tour title of the season and he improved to 5-0 in head-to-head matchups against de Minaur.
WATCH | Sinner tops de Minaur for NBO title in Toronto:
The Italian tennis player rolled over Alex de Minaur in straight sets to capture the NBO title in Toronto.
Sinner was the first Italian to reach the men’s singles final of this tournament in the Open era. He’ll jump two positions to a career-high No. 6 in the new world rankings.
Earlier Sunday, El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands won the doubles title with a 6-3, 6-1 win over the third-seeded team of American Rajeev Ram and Britain’s Joe Salisbury.
Sinner earned $1.02 million US of the $7.62-million overall purse with the victory. De Minaur banked almost $557,000 for the runner-up finish.
Arevalo and Rojer, who split about $312,000 for their win, beat de Minaur and Sinner in the first round of the doubles draw.
The 2024 competition will be the last year that the 56-player main draw format is used. The tournament will expand to a 12-day, 96-player format starting in 2025.
Tournament director Karl Hale said next year’s schedule will be slightly different since the Paris Olympics are on the calendar.
Tennis will be played at the Summer Games from July 27-Aug. 4. The main draw of the Toronto event is scheduled to start on Aug. 6 — a Tuesday — and continue to a Monday night finish on Aug. 13.