South Tyrolean ice-cold

Final: Sinner against Zverev from 9.30 a.m. LIVE

Jannik Sinner (left) triumphs at the Australian Open, Alexander Zverev loses his third Grand Slam final.

(Bild: AFP/APA/WILLIAM WEST)

Jannik Sinner won the first tennis Grand Slam title of the year again on Sunday. The top seed, 23-year-old Italian defeated the German Alexander Zverev 6:3, 7:6(4), 6:3 after 2:42 hours in the final of the Australian Open in Melbourne, which has prize money of 58.29 million euros. While Sinner has thus also won his third major final, Zverev, who is four years older, has also lost his third.

Zverev lost in five sets to Dominic Thiem at the 2020 US Open and to Carlos Alcaraz at last year's French Open. For Sinner, it was his second Melbourne title and he is also the reigning US Open champion. In other words, he won his third consecutive Major title on hard court.

Sinner was even more impressive on a human level after converting his match point before the presentation ceremony: with both hands on the shoulders of the disappointed Zverev, he privately found words of comfort for the German. And expressed it to the fans afterwards. "Sascha, it's a tough day for you and your team. You're a great player, keep believing in yourself. We all know how strong you are as a player and as a person. You'll have one of these trophies very soon."

Sinner also thanked his team, including one of his coaches Darren Cahill. The Australian will leave Sinner's entourage at the end of the year. "We've worked a lot to get back to this position. It's exciting to achieve all this but it's even more exciting to share it with you."

Zverev: "You're just too good"
 The frustrated Zverev will also have to digest this defeat. "It upsets me to stand next to the trophy and not be able to touch it," admitted Zverev. "But Jannik, you are by far the best player in the world. I was hoping that I could put up more resistance, but you're just too good. No one deserves this trophy more." Incidentally, there is another impressive statistic to prove this: Sinner recently won 22 sets in a row against top ten players.

(Bild: AP ( via APA) Austria Presse Agentur/Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Sinner didn't allow a break point
Sinner started strongly and was also largely unchallenged in his service games. Zverev had to fend off two break points in the fourth game, but he gave up the service at 3:5 and Sinner served out the set to nil. In the second set, Sinner initially missed two chances to break for 2:1, but a better Zverev forced the South Tyrolean into a tie-break this time.

In this, an unreachable net roller from Sinner to make it 5:4 on Zverev's serve proved to be decisive. A cool Sinner served out to 7:4 after two hours. The world number one had thus won his 16th tiebreak in the last 18. Sinner was said to be at a disadvantage compared to Zverev due to some problems with his physique on the way to the final, but there was no sign of this.

In the third set, the favorite managed to break for 4:2, but even before that it was clear that the South Tyrolean would not let this victory be taken away from him. The mentally very strong Sinner did not allow a single break chance in the entire match and confirmed himself as the worthy number one in the world. He took over this position for the first time after the French Open last year and has not relinquished it since.

The organizers of the Australian Open, which celebrated its 120th anniversary, were once again able to announce a record number of spectators. 1.2 million spectators watched the matches in Melbourne Park, compared to 1.102 million the week before the main competition.