No. 2 seed Jannik Sinner of Italy continued his torrid start to 2024 by defeating Bulgarian 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 6-1 on Sunday to win the Miami Open title in Miami Gardens, Fla.
Sinner captured his second career ATP Masters 1000 crown — his first came at the Canadian Open last year — by finishing off Dimitrov in a mere 73 minutes. Sinner reached the final in Miami in both 2021 and 2023 but could not break through until Sunday.
Now, Sinner will rise to No. 2 in the ATP rankings, a career high for him. It’s the latest in a string of firsts for the 22-year-old star, who helped Italy win the Davis Cup last winter.
“I’m really proud obviously about the result,” said Sinner, who is 22-1 in all competitive matches this year. “I started off struggling a little bit this week. I haven’t had so much time to adapt on this court, so I knew in the beginning that it’s going to be tough. As the tournament went on, I felt better and better. Today’s performance was really, really good. I’m just proud how I handled the situation. It was not easy, so it was a very, very good two weeks.”
Sinner saved the only break point he faced while converting four of eight break-point opportunities against Dimitrov. Sinner won a whopping 21 of his 24 first-service points (87.5 percent) and 12 of 19 on his second serve (63.2 percent).
Sinner trailed 2-1 in the first set as each player held serve until Sinner broke Dimitrov in the fifth game. In the second set, Sinner won five straight games to polish off his opponent.
While Sinner took down No. 3 seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the semifinals in similar fashion, winning 6-1, 6-2, Dimitrov had a challenging path to the finals. He upset No. 1 seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinals, and he followed that up with a three-set win over fourth seed Alexander Zverev of Germany in Saturday’s semis.
Sunday marked Dimitrov’s third appearance in a Masters 1000 final.
“Even though I’m not the winner today, I feel like one,” Dimitrov said. “You guys (the fans) have really embraced me a lot this year.”
–Field Level Media
