Sinner has chance to showcase his growth in Miami final - opinion
When Sinner and Alcaraz face each other, it is always a spectacle. They are always fiery and emotionally charged matches, with the possible exception of the semi-final in Indian Wells where the Italian, feeling a little tired, gave in a little too easily.
However, he raised his level in Miami and managed to take a great revenge against the worl No.1. Two tennis players who - as Alcaraz himself says - are destined to write the history of tennis in the present and future. They are reviving the duels that we saw between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Just as Novak Djokovic stood between the Swiss star and the phenomenal Spaniard, here between Sinner and Alcaraz there is another third wheel: Daniil Medvedev. A tough obstacle, especially for Sinner, who will face him today in the final.
Tennis sometimes depends a lot on the characteristics of players as well as the surface. So bizarrely, it has been easier for Sinner to face Alcaraz than it has Medvedev.
At least until today, because the Italian is on the rise and is raising his game to stratospheric levels.
Last night he showed an iron will, managing not to suffer the psychological toll of seeing his opponent come back and snatch the first set in a tie-break - a situation that would trouble the vast majority of tennis players except the real champions. And Sinner proved to be a champion by taking the second set and taking advantage of Alcaraz's lapses in the third.
A victory of real class that propels him to the top of world tennis, much higher than the tenth position in the rankings in which he now finds himself.
Medvedev was destroyed by Alcaraz in the final at Indian Wells. If tennis was simple, Sinner should beat Medvedev. But there are some factors to be evaluated.
The first is that Medvedev was not at ease on the slow hard court of Indian Wells, while In Miami, he is more at ease.
The second is that the Russian is a sort of kryptonite for our champion: five meetings between the two, five defeats for Sinner. All on indoor courts: Marseille in 2020 and 2021, at the ATP Finals, also in 2021, in Vienna in 2022 and in Rotterdam this year.
This figure alone makes it clear that Sinner struggles against the Russian's game much more than he does Alcaraz's, with their head to head at three apiece.
Something that Sinner struggles against when it comes to Medvedev are the serves, with the first serve devastating and the second always kept at a high speed, with Sinner's return often negated.
Moreover, in the previous matches, the Russian has shown an ability to intercept and neutralise Sinner's first serve, as well as great tactical skill in managing the game. To be clear, in the last match played in Rotterdam, Sinner managed to be aggressive on only 12% of second serves.
That is why today's final will say a lot about the current level Jannik Sinner is at. Beyond a Masters 1000 trophy, it will be crucial to see whether the South Tyrolean has improved to the point of finding effective countermeasures to a game as unorthodox as the Russian's.
The conditions are there for him to succeed. Medvedev is within his reach, despite statistics to the contrary.
