The first edition of Six Kings Slam is history. And the winner is: Jannik Sinner. The 23-year-old won a superb final against Carlos Alcaraz on Saturday evening and thus won the 6 million Jackpot.
19 October 2024
Oh: with them
Not only is Saudi Arabia more influential in sports like golf and football, the desert state is also becoming more and more present in tennis. The name of the state investment fund PIF is on the ATP world ranking. With the Six Kings Slam, Saudi Arabia has now taken the next step. Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune played a tournament in which a single participation was awarded $1.5 million. Sinner, who won an excellent final against Alcaraz 6:7, 6:3 and 6:3 on Saturday, won even $6 million. However, that faded into the background.
The reason for this is simple. The South Tyrolean and his eternal rival fought a thrilling and hard-fought duel. The fact that it was a show game was forgotten in the light of the seriousness with which the two actors were playing. The fans present, including Hollywood star Martin Lawrence, were delighted. From Sinner’s point of view, it was all the more important that he managed to beat Alcaraz for the first time this season in the fourth attempt. The conditions in the hall were undoubtedly the number one in the world at hand.
Alcaraz ice cold in the tiebreak
Sinner seemed to be the best player from the first minute. He quickly took a 4-1 lead. However, a poor game meant that Alcaraz got the break back. As he did about two weeks ago in the final of the ATP 500 tournament in Beijing, the Spaniard played his aggressive game and put Sinner under constant pressure. The 23-year-old could not stand this during the first set break.
But the protégé Simone Vagnozzi did not despair – not even when he lost four break points in the second set when the score was 3:1 and he had to give up his serve as a result. The mighty sinner immediately regained the lost break. From this point on there was no turning back: the world number one won the set and from then on there were no problems with his service games. Alcaraz, on the other hand, struggled to win almost every serve before having to fight midway through the set. Two double faults gave Sinner the decisive break. After that, attending was just a formality.