Jannik Sinner ties Roger Federer Masters 1000 mark with Rome win

Jannik Sinner’s Rome win matters because it was not just an opening-round result. It pushed one of the hottest runs the Masters 1000 circuit has ever seen to 29 straight matches. That number tied Roger Federer for the third-longest winning streak at this level, and it happened on home soil with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Sebastian Ofner on Saturday, May 10. ### What exactly did Sinner do? He beat Ofner in straight sets in his first match of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome. The score was routine enough, but the bigger thing was the streak attached to it — 29 consecutive Masters 1000 match wins. ATP’s stats page logged the match at 1:40:59, and ATP’s recap tied that result directly to Federer’s mark. (atptour.com) ### Why is 29 such a big number? Because Masters 1000 events are the tier just below the Slams, and winning this many matches in a row there is brutally hard. Different surfaces, different draws, almost no room for an off week. Federer’s 29 had sat as one of the benchmark runs in the format, and now Sinner has matched it. ATP also flagged that Novak Djokovic’s 31-match streak from 2011 is the next target in sight. (atptour.com) ### How did he get here? Basically, Sinner has been vacuuming up the biggest non-Slam titles. ATP says he won Paris at the end of 2025, then Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, and Madrid in 2026 — five straight Masters 1000 trophies. That Madrid title made him the first player ever to win five consecutive Masters 1000 events, which is why every Rome match now feels like a record attempt. (atptour.com) ### Why does Rome matter more than the others? Rome is the missing piece. Sinner has won eight different Masters 1000 events, and ATP says Rome is the only one he has not yet captured. If he wins this tournament, he completes the Career Golden Masters — meaning at least one title at all nine Masters 1000 stops. Djokovic is the only man who has done that so far. (atptour.com) ### Wasn’t Rome painful for him recently? Yes — and that’s part of why this run has extra weight. In 2025, Sinner reached the Rome final but lost to Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets after a tight first set. So this year is not just another title defense or another hot week. It is a chance to erase the one Masters gap still sitting on his résumé. (atptour.com) ### Who’s next? Alexei Popyrin. He was set to face Sinner in the third round on Monday, May 11, not before 3 p.m. local time in Rome. Sky Sport listed Sinner ahead 2-1 in their head-to-head, with Popyrin winning in Madrid in 2021 and Sinner taking the last two meetings — at the 2025 US Open and in Doha in February 2026. (atptour.com) ### So what changes if Sinner wins again? He moves past Federer and owns the third-longest Masters winning streak outright. And if he reaches the Rome semifinals, ATP says the streak would hit 32, which would push him beyond Djokovic’s 31 from 2011. That is the real shape of the story now — every round in Rome is both a tournament match and a live update to the Masters record book. (sport.sky.it) ### Bottom line? Sinner did not just survive his opener in Rome. He turned it into another piece of tennis history — and now the next few days could move him from tying Federer to clearing him, while keeping the rarest Masters milestone in play. (atptour.com 1) (atptour.com 2)