Italy’s Jannik Sinner showed why he’s the No. 1 player in the world on Sunday as he used his power from the baseline and a consistent serve to defeat Alexander Zverev of Germany to win his second consecutive Australian Open singles title.

Sinner needed two hours, 42 minutes to post the 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory in Melbourne. With his win at the U.S. Open last fall, Sinner has won three of the past five Grand Slam men’s titles.

Against Zverev, he didn’t face a break point and won 84 percent of the points on his first serve and 63 percent on his second serve.

“He’s in a different universe right now to anyone else,” Zverev said of Sinner, comparing him to 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic in his prime.

Sinner, 23, now has won 21 consecutive matches at hard-court majors. He is the first player since Djokovic in 2015-16 to win three hard-court Grand Slam tournaments in a row.

The first Italian man to win three majors, he also is the first man to defend his first major championship since Rafael Nadal did it in 2005-06.

In the second set tiebreaker, Zverev had a chance to turn the tide of the match but couldn’t. Tied at 4 points, he lost serve, and Sinner won the next two points to go up 2-0.

Sinner sailed through the third set and ended up with 32 winners and 27 unforced errors, compared to 25 and 45, respectively, for Zverev. The German hit 12 aces.

Zverev tried to be aggressive in the match and take Sinner off the baseline and to the net, but the Italian proved prolific there, winning 77 percent (10 of 13) of his shots there.

Sinner thanked his team after the match for helping him prepare to win another Australian Open.

“To my team, what can I say. We worked a lot to be again in this position,” he said. “It is an amazing feeling to share this moment with all of you.”

Zverev, 27, has cemented his title as the best active player — and maybe the best ever — to never win a major. The match against Sinner was his third Grand Slam final, following a crushing five-set loss to Dominic Thiem in the 2020 U.S. Open and a defeat at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz at the French Open in 2024.

In a poignant moment after the match, Sinner embraced a teary-eyed Zverev on the court and gave him words of encouragement.

“I was quite down,” Zverev said. “I was quite emotional also in that stage. I think he saw that. He said that I would definitely lift one of those trophies in my career. I’m too good not to. That’s his words.”

It’s clear that Sinner and Alcaraz make up the next two pegs on tennis’ next Big Three, prepared to inherit the title from Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer.

Zverev said he has some catching up to do if he is to play at Sinner’s level.

“He completely outplayed me. From the back of the court, he completely outplayed me,” said Zverev, who still leads Sinner 4-3 in their head-to-head play. “As I said, I’m serving better than him, but that’s it. He does everything else better than me. He moves better than me. He hits his forehand better than me. He hits his backhand better than me. He returns better than me. He volleys better than me.

“At the end of the day, tennis has five or six massive shots, like massive factors, and he does four or five of them better than me. That’s the reason why he won. He deserved to win today.”

–Field Level Media