The world number one battled back from a rain-interrupted night in Rome to seal his place in Sunday’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia final — and with it, a shot at completing the Career Golden Masters against Casper Ruud. Sinner beat Medvedev 6-2, 5-7, 6-4.
Jannik Sinner is one victory away from achieving what only Novak Djokovic has managed before him. He survived one of the most unusual finishes of his career to defeat Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 in the semi-finals of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome.
The match, which began Friday evening at Campo Centrale under floodlights, was suspended at 9:45 p.m. CEST due to heavy rain with Sinner leading 4-2 in the deciding third set. When play resumed on Saturday afternoon — some 18 hours later — the Italian needed just 15 minutes to dispatch the remaining business and book his return to the Rome final.
“Usually, during the night, I don’t struggle to sleep, but this time it was not easy,” Sinner admitted. “You are in the third set, nearly done, but you still have to show up again and you never know what is happening. It is like the start of the match as there are nerves again. I am very happy with how I handled this situation and that I am back in the final.”
A see-saw of a match
The opening set was a masterclass. Sinner won 92% of first-serve points (11 from 12, according to Infosys ATP Stats), dismantling Medvedev with characteristic precision and moving through the first set in little over half an hour.
But the 30-year-old Russian, one of the sport’s most tactically astute operators, refused to accommodate a straightforward evening. Gradually, Medvedev shifted the dynamic. He pushed Sinner deeper behind the baseline, introducing variation, and turning what had been a clinical dismantling into a grinding, physically taxing exchange. At times, Sinner was visibly spent between rallies, bent double as he tried to recover.
When Medvedev struck a clean backhand winner to level the match at one set apiece, a stunned silence fell over Campo Centrale. The momentum had unambiguously swung.
Yet Sinner responded. After breaking to lead 2-1 in the decider, he erupted with a thunderous roar and reestablished control. He was leading 4-2 when the rain intervened.
Returning to court the following afternoon, Sinner held to love and conjured two match points on Medvedev’s serve. He could not convert either, but held his own delivery once more to complete a two-hour, 37-minute victory that extended his record Masters 1000 winning streak to 33 matches.
One title away from history
By reaching the Rome final for a second consecutive year — having lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the 2025 showpiece — Sinner now stands one match away from completing the Career Golden Masters: the feat of winning all nine Masters 1000 titles. Only Djokovic has achieved it. Victory on Sunday would also make Sinner only the second man after Rafael Nadal in 2011 to reach the final of the season’s first five Masters 1000 events.
Waiting in Sunday’s final is Casper Ruud. The Norwegian dispatched home wildcard Luciano Darderi with clinical authority, 6-1, 6-1, in a match interrupted by a two-hour rain delay on Friday.
“I am a bit sorry for Luciano, playing at home and not with the most energy, but it is understandable — he finished at 2:30 a.m. the other night,” Ruud said. “What a tournament he has had and luckily for me I was done much earlier that day and had a little more time to recover. It is my 10th semi-final at a 1000 and his first, so you try to use that experience to your advantage.”
Ruud, 27, is now the sixth active player to have reached the final at all three clay-court Masters 1000 events — Monte-Carlo, Madrid, and Rome. He claimed the Madrid title last season, and victory on Sunday would give him his second Masters 1000 crown and his 15th tour-level title overall.
The Norwegian is also pragmatic about the scale of the challenge ahead. Sinner leads their head-to-head 4-0, has never dropped a set against Ruud, and dismissed him 6-0, 6-1 in the Rome quarter-finals just twelve months ago. But Ruud, whose recovery time ahead of the final will be longer than Sinner’s, is not approaching Sunday as an inevitability.
“I just have to try to approach it as any other match,” he said. “Try not to think about the big wave in front, with all the momentum he’s building, all the confidence and the records that he’s building and breaking. At the end of the day, he’s human. I have to try to think that way as much as I can.”
