Friday night at the Italian Open, the Roman rain was getting heavier. As fans raised their umbrellas, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev were sludging their way through the seventh game of the third set of their semifinal.
Medvedev, serving down 6-2, 5-7, 4-2, saved a break point at 30-40. The rain kept pouring. Medvedev got to Ad-40. The court was fine, according to chair umpire Aurélie Tourte, but the lines were getting dangerous.
Sinner wanted to stop. Medvedev was unbothered. Tourte made her decision, and off the players went, the final action of the first chapter of a match that had initially promised precious little of the drama it ultimately delivered.
Come Saturday, Sinner, the world No. 1, did what he needed to do, holding serve twice for a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 win to reach his sixth consecutive ATP Masters 1000 tournament final, against Norway’s Casper Ruud. Should he win Sunday, he will have lifted all nine ATP Masters 1000 trophies, at 24. Novak Djokovic, the only other man to do that, did so when he was 31.
Even in defeat, Medvedev demonstrated how hard he can push a player who so often looks immovable — and how hard it truly is to push him over the edge. In the past 52 weeks, Sinner’s average rally length in matches is 4 shots. On clay, it is 4.3.
Friday night, Medvedev dragged the Italian up to 5.5, almost a 40-percent increase, according to data from Courtside Advantage. The slow, dank conditions made a difference too. But Medvedev is a master of attrition, and after being blown out in the opening set, he began to drag Sinner around enough that the Italian was constantly hitting shots on the run and after having to move, rather than dictating from a more settled position.
In the opening set, Sinner recorded zero sprints. In the second, he recorded 14. He hit an average of 24 shots per game in the second set, compared to 15 in the first. And together he and Medvedev played 39 points of over 5 shots against 46 between zero and 4. In the first set, they played 18 points of over 5 shots and 28 points of between zero and 4.
But despite vomiting on the court and feeling the intensity in his legs, Sinner was never truly out of the set, and he endured long enough to resume Saturday up a break of serve that proved decisive. He called for a medical timeout in the third, which Medvedev suggested was for cramps. Players are not allowed a medical timeout for cramp, but if they tell a trainer that they do — or feel that they do — have an injury to one of their leg muscles, it is the trainer’s call as to whether to treat them or not.
Sinner now heads into the final of his home tournament with a 28-match win streak in all competitions, and a record-breaking 33-match one at ATP Masters 1000 tournaments.
He appears to have patched his game against the field. In 2026, he is hitting his serve faster and closer to the lines than he did in 2025.
Medvedev’s combination of endurance tennis and hyper-aggressiveness when he can find it is one way to beat him, but very few players can produce it.
To beat Sinner when he is not off his game requires enough power to overwhelm him, a wide enough range of shots to knock him out of rhythm and an elite first-serve return. Step forward … Carlos Alcaraz, whose right wrist is not going to be ready for tennis until at least grass season. Step forward … Djokovic, on that astonishing Friday night in Melbourne four months ago, who needed to save 16 of 18 break points against his serve to win an Australian Open semifinal in five sets.
For everybody else, the problem is that they can do part of it but not all of it, or they can’t do it for long enough, often enough. Even Medvedev’s strategy requires immense rally discipline, a powerful enough first serve to do repeatable, meaningful damage and the ability to change direction — laterally and vertically — almost at will, and it didn’t fully take Sinner down.
Ruud is the next challenger.