Jannik Sinner is the first finalist of the Sofia Open 2020.
The young Italian deserved straight-sets win over Adrian Mannarino (France) – 6:3, 7:5 in nearly an hour and a half. The match tomorrow will be Sinner’s first ATP tour final in his career, and became the youngest Italian in the Open Era to reach an ATP Tour championship match
His opponent in the match for the trophy will be the winner in the second semifinal between Vasek Pospisil (Canada) and Richard Gasquet (France).
Sinner created just one break point in each set and took both opportunities to reach the final. Sinner dictated rallies with powerful forehands and capitalised on forehand errors from his opponent at key moments to claim his 18th tour-level win of the year (18-11).
Mannarino started the match dominantly, and in his first two service games, he won to 0. In the fifth game, however, the 32-year-old Frenchman cracked and allowed himself to be punched, after which he was not able to catch up until the end of the set. In the second set, Mannarino could lead three times with breaks, but Sinner still found a way to get out. In the 11th game, the Frenchman collapsed and after a simple mistake near the net made, and serving for the match the 19-year-old Sinner was uncompromising.
Sinner closed the match with nine aces and three double faults on his account. He was also impeccable at the breakpoints – 2 out of 2. Thus he became the youngest Tour-level finalist (19y,2m) since Auger-Aliassime (18y, 10m) in 2019 in Stuttgart.
This defeat ended Mannarino’s 6-match winning streak in ATP Tour semifinal since loss from Sam Querrey in 2018 New York.
