Jannik Sinner clinches first title since Wimbledon with China Open triumph | Jannik Sinner

Jannik Sinner continued to piece together one of the greatest seasons of his career as he clinched his 21st career title at the China Open with a comfortable 6-2, 6-2 victory over Learner Tien.

Sinnerâ€s victory marks his third title of 2025 after winning the Australian Open and Wimbledon earlier this year. The Italianâ€s record now stands at 42-5 (89%) this year and he has reached the final in seven of eight tournaments, including all four grand slams.

Only Carlos Alcaraz has come close to Sinner on hard courts, with Sinner winning 79 of his last 80 matches on the surface against players besides the ATP No 1. Other than Alcarazâ€s four hard court wins over Sinner during this period, Sinnerâ€s loss to Andrey Rublev at the Canada Masters last year remains his only defeat on his favourite surface since November 2023.

Despite the pair competing in different countries against different fields of opponents, this week has further underlined how superior Sinner and Alcaraz are to the rest of the tour. A day earlier, Alcaraz defeated Taylor Fritz to win his eighth title of the season in Tokyo.

In the aftermath of his US Open defeat in New York, which led to the Italian losing the No 1 ranking he had held since June 2024, Sinner said he intended to make himself more unpredictable in his matches against his rivaleven though trying to make those changes could lead to more losses early on.

The 24-year-old has shown some of those adjustments throughout this week, particularly by implementing more drop shots. Although he was not as dominant as in many of his other recent tournament runs, dropping sets to Terence Atmane and Alex de Minaur, Sinner still overpowered all opponents in his path.

There is no rest for most of the best players in a gruelling season. The ATP tour moves on to the Shanghai Masters, the penultimate ATP Masters 1000 event, where Sinner will has a first-round bye. Alcaraz, however, will not be present in China after withdrawing shortly after his win in Tokyo in order to manage an ankle injury.

Meanwhile, Gael Monfils has announced that he will retire after the 2026 season. Monfils, who became the oldest ATP champion in history in January and turned 39 last month, has enjoyed an celebrated 21-year career as one of the most charismatic players in the sport. The Frenchman reached a career-high ranking of No 6 in 2016 and has won 13 titles.

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