The top-ranked Sinner’s 6-4, 6-4 victory over Casper Ruud<\/a> in the final on the red clay of the Foro Italico also made him only the second man after Novak Djokovic<\/a> to win all nine Masters 1000 events — the biggest tournaments outside the Grand Slams.<\/p>\n Djokovic completed the career set in 2018 in Cincinnati at age 31 and then went on to win each event at least twice. Sinner is 24, and with his only real rival, Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, currently sidelined by a right wrist injury, seemingly nobody can beat him.<\/p>\n “Welcome to the exclusive club, Jannik,” Djokovic wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n Sinner extended his winning streak to 29 matches. He hasn’t lost since getting beaten by Jakub Mensik<\/a> in the Qatar Open quarterfinals Feb. 19. And he is now 17-0 on clay this year entering the French Open, which starts May 24.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks “Incredible,” Sinner said. “It’s been a long time since an Italian won — 50 years. I’m happy one of us was able to take advantage of this great period for Italian tennis.”<\/p>\n Sinner celebrated calmly as usual, revealing a wide smile when he landed an inside-out forehand on the line on his first championship point, then held his hands over his head in apparent relief. He waved to the crowd, which included 1976 champion Panatta sitting in the front row.<\/p>\n “Adriano, after 50 years, we’ve won back a very important trophy,” Sinner told the 75-year-old Panatta, who participated in the trophy ceremony.<\/p>\n Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam that Sinner hasn’t won. He has two Australian Open titles and has won Wimbledon and the US Open once each.<\/p>\n Sinner’s triumph, with Italy President Sergio Mattarella in attendance, came after he lost last year’s final in Rome to Alcaraz in his first tournament back after a three-month doping ban. That defeat came a day after Jasmine Paolini<\/a> in 2025 became the first Italian woman to win the Rome singles title in 40 years, when she also claimed the doubles trophy with partner Sara Errani<\/a>.<\/p>\n With many of Sinner’s fans dressed in orange — his theme color, which matches his curly hair — the capacity crowd of 10,500 on Campo Centrale created a soccer-style atmosphere with chanting and loud cheers for the player who has become far and away Italy’s most popular athlete.<\/p>\n After several key points, the crowd erupted into a cheer of “Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole; Sin-ner, Sin-ner.”<\/p>\n Angelo Binaghi, the president of the Italian tennis federation, suggested that even if there was a 25,000-seat center court in Rome — bigger than the US Open’s Arthur Ashe Stadium, the world’s largest tennis arena — it would have been full.<\/p>\n Sinner overcame exhaustion to beat Daniil Medvedev<\/a> in the semifinals in a rain-delayed match that required two days to finish. But there were no signs of fatigue against the 25th-ranked Ruud, who has been one of the circuit’s top clay-court players for years.<\/p>\n Ruud reached two finals at Roland Garros, losing to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Djokovic in 2023. But the Norwegian wasted an early break and a 2-0 advantage at the start of the first set against Sinner, who quickly broke back and then broke again toward the end of the set with the help of three key drop shots — two of which were so well-placed that Ruud didn’t even run for them.<\/p>\n A big backhand winner up the line gave Sinner another break in the opening game of the second set.<\/p>\n Sinner improved to 5-0 in his career against Ruud.<\/p>\n “What you’re doing this year, it’s hard to describe in words,” Ruud told Sinner during the trophy ceremony. “It’s really an honor to watch you play. … Congratulations for making history.”<\/p>\n It was an extra special day for the host nation after Simone Bolelli<\/a> and Andrea Vavassori<\/a> became the first Italian duo to win the men’s doubles title in Rome since 1960. Bolelli and Vavassori beat Marcel Granollers<\/a> and Horacio Zeballos<\/a> 7-6 (8), 6-7 (3), 10-3.<\/p>\n For both the singles and doubles finals, there was also a packed crowd watching on a jumbo screen on the statue-lined Pietrangeli court next to Campo Centrale.<\/p>\n Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 17, 2026, 01:16 PM ET Italian tennis fans had waited for this moment for a half century.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27],"class_list":{"0":"post-17232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rome","8":"tag-rome"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/r1659061_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=center.jpeg\")
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