Carlos Alcaraz has won the Cincinnati Open for the first time in his career after the world No 1, Jannik Sinner, his great rival, was forced to retire from their highly anticipated final with illness while trailing 0-5 in the opening set.<\/p>\n
Sinner, who had looked under the weather from the start of the match, explained later that he had been struggling with illness since Sunday. \u201cI\u2019m super sorry to disappoint you,\u201d the Italian said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom yesterday I didn\u2019t feel great. I thought that I would improve during the night. It came up worse. I tried to come out and make it at least a small match but I couldn\u2019t handle more. I\u2019m very, very sorry for all of you. I know some of you on Monday maybe had to work or do something else, so I\u2019m very, very sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 31C (87F) heat and 57% humidity, extremely difficult conditions but temperatures they have both had to navigate since the early rounds, Sinner looked completely off from the beginning and his condition only appeared to worsen during his five games on the court.<\/p>\n
Sinner opened the match with a sloppy opening service game, missing three of his first four first serves as Alcaraz eased to an early break. From the start of the set, Sinner looked determined to keep points as short as possible as he lashed out at forehands and accordingly committed increasingly wild unforced errors. Between points, Sinner walked gingerly and his face looked flushed. As the set wore on, his movement and leg drive on his strokes deteriorated.<\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz celebrates his victory. Photograph: Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Alcaraz has not always handled himself well when facing ailing opponents, including on Saturday night when he struggled briefly against a sick Alexander Zverev. To his credit, Alcaraz offered Sinner no free points, maintained his own intensity and made himself look incredibly difficult to beat. Down 0-4, Sinner requested the trainer out on the court but after serving a double fault to fall 0-5 behind, he decided it was time to end the match.<\/p>\n
After the pair embraced at the net, Alcaraz walked over to Sinner\u2019s bench and put an arm around his rival\u2019s shoulders. Sinner then explained to Alcaraz that he had not been feeling well for some time but he had \u201ctried to come out for the fans\u201d. Alcaraz responded: \u201cDon\u2019t worry at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Two years ago, Alcaraz lost an incredible match against Novak Djokovic in the Cincinnati final, a match that is widely considered one of the greatest three-set matches of all time. Although he returned to take the title, this was not how he imagined it. With the trophy in his hands, Alcaraz appeared lost for words as he addressed the crowd. \u201cAs you said, Jannik, this is not the way I want to win matches, to win the trophy. I just gotta say sorry. I know and understand how you can feel right now. I can\u2019t say anything you don\u2019t know already, but as I say many times you are truly a champion. I\u2019m pretty sure from this situation you\u2019re going to come back stronger. You always do \u2013 that\u2019s what true champions do. You really are one. Sorry and come back stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n Alcaraz has now won eight ATP Masters 1000 titles by the age of 22 \u2013 only Rafael Nadal achieved eight Masters 1000 titles at a younger age. Sinner\u2019s retirement ends his 26\u2011match winning run on hard courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz has won the Cincinnati Open for the first time in his career after the world No…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-355517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115052721240142542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}