Sinner wins Italian Open, completes Masters 1000 sweep by beating Ruud

Jannik Sinner beat Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 on Sunday, May 17, to win the Italian Open in Rome and complete the set of all nine ATP Masters 1000 titles. ATP Tour said the top-ranked Italian became the second man after Novak Djokovic to achieve the “Career Golden Masters,” a milestone covering every event in the series since 1990. The victory came at the Foro Italico in front of a home crowd and made Sinner the first Italian man to win the tournament in 50 years, according to AP. ATP Tour also said the title was Sinner’s sixth consecutive Masters 1000 crown. ### How did Sinner finish the job in Rome? Jannik Sinner closed the final in straight sets, beating Ruud 6-4, 6-4 in the men’s singles championship match on May 17. ATP Tour’s match report said Sinner controlled the final well enough to extend his Masters streak and secure the only Masters 1000 title that had been missing from his collection. Rome was the last gap because Sinner had already won the other eight Masters 1000 events before this week, ATP Tour said in its history piece on the milestone. The Rome result completed the sweep on clay, hard courts and across indoor and outdoor conditions, matching the standard previously reached only by Djokovic. ### Why was Rome the missing piece? The Internazionali BNL d’Italia had not previously been one of Sinner’s title stops. ATP Tour said his first Masters 1000 breakthrough came in Toronto in 2023, and the Rome title on Sunday completed a run that eventually covered all nine tournaments in the category. Novak Djokovic completed the same feat in 2018, ATP Tour said. Its history page on the record said only Djokovic and Sinner have won all nine Masters 1000 events since the format began in 1990. ### What does six straight Masters titles mean here? ATP Tour said the Rome championship was Sinner’s sixth successive Masters 1000 title. That number matters because Masters events sit just below the four Grand Slams in the men’s calendar and are spread across different surfaces and parts of the season. ATP Tour also said the Rome victory gave Sinner his 16th “Big Title,” its term for Grand Slams, ATP Finals, Masters 1000 events and Olympic singles gold. In that same tally, the tour said Sinner moved ahead of Carlos Alcaraz in their current race for those top-tier titles. ### What did this tournament mean in Italy? AP said Sinner became the first Italian man to win the Italian Open since Adriano Panatta 50 years ago. The win came on home soil in Rome, where the crowd had followed his run through the event and where ATP Tour described the title as the completion of his Masters set. Casper Ruud entered the final as the No. 23 seed and one of the tour’s established clay-court players. The Norwegian fell short in straight sets, leaving Sinner to add Rome to a Masters list that ATP Tour said already included every other stop in the series. ### How unusual is the full Masters sweep? The ATP Masters 1000 series contains nine events, and ATP Tour said no man other than Djokovic had completed the full set before Sunday. That made Sinner both the second player to do it and, according to ATP Tour’s coverage, the player who reached the mark in Rome at age 24. ATP Tour’s record pages on Sunday framed the achievement as a career-spanning collection rather than a single-season sweep. The distinction is that Sinner has now won each Masters event at least once, with Rome serving as the final addition. ### What comes next for Sinner and Ruud? The ATP calendar moves next to Hamburg and Geneva before Roland Garros begins in Paris on May 24. ATP Tour’s Rome results page listed Sunday’s final as the close of the event, and the tour’s schedule now turns toward the French Open clay-court major, where Sinner and Ruud are both expected to be among the men’s singles entrants.