In his worst nightmares, the devil had carrot-colored hair. Alexander Zverev started 2025 by losing in the final of the Australian Open Sinner Jannik (6-3 7-6 6-3). He met the Italian again on 26 October in the ATP 500 final in Vienna, and was defeated again (3-6 6-3 7-5). A few days later, the two faced each other in the semifinals of the Masters 1000 in Paris which was dominated by the ATP No. 2 (6-0 6-1). Today in Turin, the German ended the season with a fourth consecutive defeat in eleven months, the fifth since September 2023 when in the last 16 of the US Open for the last time he managed to win in five sets over the Red Devils. The plot was not different from previous matches: high percentages obtained in changes of serve by both, hard reciprocal attacks from the baseline (“…it was not a fun match like Lorenzo’s match last night”, he said to the crowd at the Inalpi Arena), rare preciousness in progress with Jannik taking more risks and points, few mistakes that were not a consequence of the same difficulty in containing the opponent’s power. The world number 2 tennis player recorded a better return performance, and this is nothing new. What makes the difference in his favor is a sense of security when serving in difficult moments and a greater tendency to change pace, which is not one of his characteristics: he wants to compete directly with Alcaraz. After the game finished (i.e. winning 6-4 6-3 after 97 minutes), Sascha was dejected, almost heartbroken, he knew that he gave everything without sparing himself and that he was still suffering from Jannik’s excessive strength without ever finding an effective countermeasure. But he smiles as he embraces his opponent, whom he respects and perhaps envies because of the killing instinct he often lacks. Regardless of how the final against the round robin ends on Friday Ben Shelton (today defeated in three sets by Felix Auger-Aliassime), Sinner will be on the field on Saturday in the semifinals. But the Finale tells a lot of stories. As they were leading 4-5 in the third set with serve available to close out the match and found themselves suffering the first and second breaks, respectively. And for ten minutes he had to leave the arena with nothing in his pockets, with his head bowed. This is the other side – namely the Hispanic-Australian side Alex de Minaur – from Tuesday night’s match that saw Lorenzo Musetti return to contention in the Nitto ATP Finals (7-5 3-6 7-5 result in his favor). The boy born in Sydney in 1999 and raised as a tennis player in Valencia at the Academia Equelite Juan Carlos Ferrero, just like Alcaraz, came out of the match completely exhausted: “If I want to be serious about tennis, I can’t lose a match like this. I can’t”, he admitted in the post-match press conference. I mean, I’ve given up too many games this year. I got to the point where I felt mentally dead. Ferocious self-criticism, with no consolation for a world No. 7. Actually, this is not the right time for a future husband Katie BoulterEngland is number 4 and 100 in the world. Just from a loss against Alexander Bublik in the quarterfinals in Paris last month, in the semifinals in Vienna a week earlier and in the semifinals in Beijing on September 30, in both cases against Sinner, De Minaur used 55 matches won at Tour level in 2025, his personal best, to climb the rankings: his list of achievements, however, was enriched by the only title achieved at the ATP 500 in Washington at the end of July. On that occasion he had beaten another great player and a poor finalist, the Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. The Infosys win/loss index reports that Alex has lost eight deciding sets this season, including against Musetti in the Monte Carlo semifinals. What’s more, Carrarino is a bigger loser than he is in the Big Ten: in his career he has won two titles, both in 2022, on the Queens court beating Tommy Paul and on the dangerous Neapolitan concrete against Matteo Berrettini. Therefore, you can climb to the tennis Olympus and still be a loser, at least in media terms. That was the fate of Berdych, born in 1985, world No. 4 in 2015, who won 13 of the 32 finals played: one ATP 1000 plus three 500s and nine 250s. Of course there were no dings. But Tomas is a contemporary of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka, so to some extent he has a strong justification. He made up for it with Davis, making his national team successful, as the Czech number 1 player, in 2012 and 2013. It is from him that Musetti should take an example and be present in Bologna for the final phase of the Davis Cup. If he gives up, he will miss the opportunity to enter the collective imagination as “the player who made Italy win despite Sinner’s absence”. Today Filippo Volandri, technical commissioner of the Italian national team, hinted that Musetti could step down next week: “Along with Lorenzo, we will carry out a joint evaluation, as we always do. For now we let him focus on the ongoing tournament. In recent years we have won thanks to everyone, not just individuals. We have a strong mentality, and we will bring this to Bologna. In five years we have built a real team, a group that works well together. There is still room for further improvement, and the desire is not gone.” Without Sinner we can try, but if Musetti steps down, the chances of keeping the salad bowl in Italy for the third year in a row will be greatly reduced.
When Sinner is in the Alcaraz version
