Jannik Sinner and Casper Ruud will be squaring off for the fifth time in their careers when they battle for the title at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia on Sunday.
To say this head-to-head matchup is lopsided in Sinner’s favor — as it is against almost every opponent — would be a gross understatement. The world No. 1 has won all four of their previous meetings and has never even dropped a single set to Ruud. Even before Sinner became the current version of himself, he was still dominating this “rivalry.” The Italian prevailed in straight sets on the indoor hard courts of Vienna in both 2020 and 2021 before getting the job done 6-1, 6-2 at the 2024 Nitto ATP Finals and 6-0, 6-1 in the quarterfinals of this same Rome tournament 12 months ago.
Can Ruud turn the tide? Probably not. The 25th-ranked Norwegian has done well to defeat Zachary Svajda, Jiri Lehecka, Lorenzo Musetti, Karen Khachanov, and Luciano Darderi this fortnight after advancing to the Madrid quarterfinals, but his only notable win during this stretch is over Lehecka (Musetti doesn’t count since the Italian was far less than 100 percent).
Upsetting Sinner, of course, is an entirely different proposition. The 24-year-old has won five Masters 1000 titles in succession, including all four so far this season. He is two sets away from completing the career Masters slam (Rome is the only one at which he has not yet lifted the trophy) after defeating Sebastian Ofner, Alexei Popyrin, Andrea Pellegrino, Andrey Rublev, and Daniil Medvedev. Although Sinner actually surrendered a set to Medvedev on Friday, it is no cause for concern because the Russian was playing at an extremely high level and Sinner bounced back impressively in the third.
Ruud should take more than the one game that he managed last year at the Foro Italico…but maybe not many more than that!
Pick: Sinner in 2