IN one of the matches of the year, world number one Jannik Sinner fought off a determined Alexander Zverev in an epic 2024 Cincinnati Open semi-final overnight. Sinner came into the match with injury question marks, and while he was affected throughout the contest, managed to come away with a 7-6 5-7 7-6 victory.

In the sixth meeting between the pair, Zverev was gunning for his fifth straight win against the Italian having won all three previous meetings on hardcourt. All bar one involved the losing player winning at least one set though, with a nail-biter predicted and it lived up to all expectations.

The first set went until 11-9 in the tiebreaker before Sinner could get one-up on his opponent, winning 20 out of 26 first serve points (77 per cent), and 11 from 19 second serve points (58 per cent) to grind out a hard-fought early advantage.

Zverev got on top in the second set, winning 21 of 31 points on his serve producing five aces along the way and breaking twice to Sinner’s once. Though the unforced errors were flowing at times, Zverev looked to have all the momentum heading into the third set.

“Sometimes you have to play a bit with the gut feeling. And I think this today was, my strength,” Sinner said post-match. “[There were] some up and downs, which can happen, especially when you play [for] more than three hours. It was a good match, I think for both of us. He served very, very well, so I can be very proud.”

The deciding set mirrored the first set in the way that the Italian was able to just find a way even when in trouble at times. In an effort that was as gritty as it was brilliant, the world number one got back on top with an incredible service performance, only dropping six points for the set and producing six aces.

Neither player faced a break point in the deciding set, as the match ticked over the three-hour mark. In the end, it was just a few moments here or there in the third set tiebreaker that made the difference with Sinner eventually being able to relax.

“[It was] a tough match, an exciting match. [The] atmosphere has been amazing throughout the whole match,” Sinner said. “Many, many different conditions. We started off with [it] sunny, then after came the rain. Now [it] was night session, so we had a lot of tension for both of us. I’m very happy about this performance, and obviously very happy to be in the final.”

Sinner will now take on homecourt hero Frances Tiafoe in the ATP 1000 final, with the American underdog upstaging 15th seed Holger Rune in the other semi-final. The United States representative won 4-6 6-1 7-6 in two hours and nine minutes.

“Crazy, crazy. That last set was nuts,” Tiafoe said post-match. “It got pretty breezy there at the end so we were kind of just playing the percentages. But yeah, I got really lucky there. I had a couple net cords, but I also battled. I competed really hard and put myself in position.”

Tiafoe served 13 aces to 12 and did well off his second serve, winning 61 per cent of points compared to Rune’s 46 per cent, while converting one extra break through the match after coming from a set down.