Unstoppable Sinner Moves On, Closes In on Masters Milestone, in Rome

On a windy day in the Italian capital, Jannik Sinner continued to breeze through the competition. The 24-year-old World No. 1 dropped just two games and lost only nine points on serve as he waltzed past Ausssie Alexei Popyrin, 6-2, 6-0, to reach the round of 16 in Rome.

“I feel like it was one-way wind,” Sinner said. “You don’t have to change a lot when you play with wind. You try to move the ball around a little bit more, and when I’m against the wind I’m someone who tries to go quite flat.”

“It has been a very good performance from my side. It was very tricky conditions. He’s a big server, so his percentage was not very high, and that helped me a little bit for sure, but I’ve been returning very well.”

Sinner, who will next face Italian qualifier Andrea Pellegrino, has now won 30 consecutive Masters 1000 matches and sits just one victory shy of the all-time record in that category. His streak includes titles in Paris last year followed by triumphant runs at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo and Madrid.

Bidding to become the first Italian man to win Rome since 1976 — and to complete the career Golden Masters — Sinner needed just 65 minutes to dispatch Popyrin in their fourth career meeting.

Novak Djokovic remains the only man to complete the Golden Masters, having won every Masters 1000 event at least twice.

Sinner has now held serve in 45 consecutive service games and extended his overall winning streak to 25 matches, one shy of his career-best mark.

Popyrin earned just one break-point opportunity, but Sinner erased it aggressively while serving at 2-1 in the opening set by charging the net behind a serve-and-volley play.

“I felt like it was the right thing to do,” Sinner said. “There was a little bit of wind, and when you play in the wind, it’s very tough to move the ball around, so I tried the serve-and-volley. It was just an instinct move.”

Sinner improved to 32-2 on the season, with his only losses coming against Djokovic in the Australian Open semifinals and Jakub Mensik in the Doha quarterfinals. He has dropped just eight sets all season.