{"id":30309,"date":"2026-03-30T10:42:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=30309"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:42:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:42:36","slug":"sinner-credits-dominant-serve-for-sunshine-double-victory","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sinner-credits-dominant-serve-for-sunshine-double-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinner credits dominant serve for Sunshine Double victory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Second seed, Jannik Sinner of Italy, credits his serve for helping him to complete the prestigious Sunshine Double on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sinner beat the 21st-seeded Czech, Jiri Lehecka, in straight sets in the Miami Open final.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Italian is the first man since Roger Federer in 2017 to win the Indian Wells and Miami titles back-to-back.<\/p>\n

Rain delayed the start of the match by 90 minutes but once play got going, nothing was going to stop the second seed.<\/p>\n

Lehecka, who played in his first Masters 1000 final, tried to provide some resistance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But Sinner was his unstoppable self, he created 11 break points throughout the match, fired 10 aces to five and hit 22 winners to Lehecka’s 16.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the end, Sinner only needed 93 minutes to record a 6-4, 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

He bagged his seventh Masters 1000 crown and extended his record to 34 consecutive sets won at this level.<\/p>\n

The Italian believes his serve made the difference this time around.
\n<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

“<\/i><\/b>Also, this month, I feel like here, I was serving better than at Indian Wells. But we worked a lot to be in this position. Now, on clay, the serve, you need to use it in a very different way. You cannot go only flat. Let’s see how that works. At the moment, I also want to enjoy this moment”, said Sinner.<\/p>\n

Sinner became only the eighth man to complete the Sunshine Double.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

He joins the likes of Novak Djokovic, Federer, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, who all managed to achieve this feat.<\/p>\n

Despite losing, Lehecka moved up eight places on the latest world rankings.
\nHe is now at a career-best 14th.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

–SABC–<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14834,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-30309","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Jannik Sinner credits his serve for helping him to complete","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30310,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30309\/revisions\/30310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}