Sinner drops just one game in punishing win over Ruud

Jannik Sinner treated his home fans to an Internazionali BNL d'Italia masterclass on Thursday evening, when he routed Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1 with a stunning all-around quarter-final performance in Rome.

The top-seeded Italian struck the ball powerfully off both wings from the first point on Campo Centrale, and he barely looked back as he overwhelmed Ruud, who less than two weeks ago won his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Madrid. After setting the tone by winning 16 of the first 18 points, Sinner maintained his level to race to a 64-minute triumph.

“It’s tough to say,” said Sinner, when asked how close to ‘perfection’ his performance had been. “I was feeling great on the court today. I think we all saw that. My goal was to try to understand where my level is at this tournament. It raised day by day, so I’m very happy about that. The result doesn’t really matter, but I felt today was a very positive sign for me.

“Everything can change in one day. It’s not that one performance can tell everything about my shape now, but I’m very happy. I think today everything worked very well. I was serving well, also returning well, and moving great on the court. I’m very happy about that and now let’s see what’s coming in the semis.”

Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole... SINNER! SINNER! 🎶🇮🇹@InteBNLdItalia | #IBI25 pic.twitter.com/qFzD9jPWo7

— ATP Tour (@atptour) May 15, 2025

With his 25th consecutive tour-level win, Sinner set a semi-final meeting with Tommy Paul, who earlier defeated Hubert Hurkacz 7-6(4), 6-3. The 23-year-old, who is playing his first tournament since January’s Australian Open, is bidding to become just the second Italian men’s singles champion in Rome after Adriano Panatta triumphed in 1976.

With Lorenzo Musetti also into the semi-finals, Sinner’s victory marks the first time in the Open Era that multiple Italian men have reached the last four in Rome, and the first time in Masters 1000 history (since 1990) that two Italians have reached the semi-finals at the same event. Based on the way he ruthlessly ended Ruud’s nine-match winning streak, Sinner will be confident he can push on to end Italy’s 49-year wait for a men’s singles champion in Rome.

“We had a head-to-head, I maybe looked at that,” said Sinner, when asked to explain how he so emphatically improved to 4-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Ruud. “Every one of us has one or two opponents where we struggle a little bit more. I tried to replicate what I did in the past today on a different surface. I was hitting the ball very well. These conditions, playing in the night against Casper is a little bit better from my point of view, because he cannot make the ball bounce as much.”

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The opening game of Thursday evening’s quarter-final was an indication of what was to come at the Foro Italico. With Ruud serving, Sinner outlasted the sixth seed in two bruising baseline exchanges before bringing up three break points with a stunning angled winner off a net cord.

Sinner went on to break to love and then assumed total control of the match, claiming his first 6-0 set against a Top 10 opponent with groundstrokes that were crisp even by his own world-class standards. The World No. 1’s barrage of quality left Ruud with little chance to gain a foothold in the match, and the Norwegian did not hit his first winner until 33 minutes had passed and the second set had already begun.

The second set quickly started to follow in a similar fashion to the first, although Ruud did manage to carve out the briefest of respites from Sinner’s dominance when he saved two break points to hold for 1-2. Perhaps in acknowledgement of the level his opponent was producing, Ruud light-heartedly raised his arms to the crowd in celebration.

The Sinner procession quickly resumed, however, and the Italian reeled off four straight games to wrap a victory in which he converted six of nine break points he earned, according to Infosys ATP Stats. A bemused Ruud laughed as he embraced Sinner at the net after he had fallen to one of the most scintillating performances of 2025 so far.