{"id":33697,"date":"2026-05-04T18:09:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33697"},"modified":"2026-05-04T18:10:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:10:56","slug":"sinner-eyes-rome-return-after-madrid-masterclass","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sinner-eyes-rome-return-after-madrid-masterclass\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinner eyes Rome return after Madrid masterclass"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Fresh from making history in Madrid, Jannik Sinner wasted little time turning his thoughts to completing the &#8216;Golden Masters&#8217; by triumphing on home soil in Rome next week \u00a0which would make him \u200bonly the second man to win all nine Masters 1000 titles.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The 24-year-old Italian became the first \u200cman to win five successive Masters 1000 crowns on Sunday after dismantling Alexander Zverev 6-1 6-2 in 57 minutes, adding Madrid to recent triumphs in Paris, Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Last year I made a comeback after a difficult period and it certainly gave me a lot emotionally and in terms of \u200bsupport in general playing there. So I&#8217;m very happy to be returning there, and on the other hand, \u200bwinning the tournament isn&#8217;t easy; all tournaments are very difficult. So we&#8217;ll see how it goes there.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;But right now, honestly, I&#8217;m \u200cjust thinking \u2060about resting mentally for the next 2\u20133 days, because I&#8217;ve given so much and there&#8217;s so, so much energy behind what you put into a tournament, so we&#8217;ll see.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Sinner, who has underlined his dominance on hardcourts and clay this season, admitted the strain of expectation has been mounting.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I want to enjoy this right now. It \u200bhas been a very, very \u200blong tournament. I&#8217;m obviously \u2060very happy. But now it&#8217;s also good to recover, especially mentally, there&#8217;s a lot of pressure.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Asked about Zverev&#8217;s suggestion that there is a sizeable gap between Sinner and \u200bthe rest of the field, the Italian said: &#8220;It&#8217;s tough to say.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Sometimes you have good \u200bdays, sometimes \u2060bad days. Today it was a really, really good performance for myself. Very solid serving\u2026 But I don&#8217;t compare myself with other players. I try to be the best possible version of myself, and that&#8217;s it.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;In my opinion, (Zverev) was \u2060a bit \u200bmore tired today, and so when I&#8217;m a bit more tired, \u200bI tend to be a bit more nervous too. It&#8217;s the most normal thing. I played very solidly on the key points, I \u200btried to make the right choices and then the result was excellent.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14834,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-33697","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Sinner has underlined his dominance on hardcourts and clay this season.","published_date":"","news_description":"Sinner has underlined his dominance on hardcourts and clay this season.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33697","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":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33699,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33697\/revisions\/33699"}],"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=33697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}