WATCH: Jannik Sinner’s superb point during ‘most-watched match in Italian channel’s history’
Jannik Sinner enjoyed a memorable week at the China Open as he dispatched Daniil Medvedev in the final to lift the title and it is no surprise his victory resulted in a record-breaking day for Italy’s SuperTennis.
Long tipped to become one of the biggest stars in tennis, Sinner is starting to fulfil his early promise as he has enjoyed a fairytale second half of the 2023 season.
At Wimbledon he produced his best display at a Grand Slam as he reached the semi-final and he followed it up with his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title at the Canadian Open in August. After a disappointing fourth-round exit from the US Open, he bounced back in style at last week’s China Open.
The Italian won the biggest title of his career as he defeated top seed Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets in the semi-final and followed it up with a 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-2) victory over second seed Medvedev in the final on Wednesday.
Sinner won several incredible points during the match, but perhaps few were better than during the opening rally of the second-set tie-breaker.
The sixth seed looked like he stumbled while chasing a lob, but regained his composure to finish the point with an exceptional drop shot.
He finished off the clash on his first match point as he won the third title of the 2023 campaign and ninth overall.
Record-breaking figures
Sinner rose to a career-high No 4 in the rankings on the back of that win – the joint-highest position for an Italian man in ATP Rankings history alongside Adriano Panatta – but he wasn’t the only big winner as the Italian channel SuperTennis also enjoyed a historic day.
The tennis station reported that an average of 478,779 viewers watched the Sinner-Medvedev final, adding that the live broadcast reached 1,192,090 viewers for at least one minute while 2,000,772 “contacts” were made during the course of the day.
“For our channel it is an unprecedented result. It is in fact the most watched match in the history of SuperTennis,” the broadcaster said.
“The previous record – which dates back to the women’s final of the 2014 Internazionali BNL d’Italia between Sara Errani and Serena Williams – attracted just over 476,000 spectators on average.
“In the final stages of the match, between 3.45pm and 4pm, the Sinner-Medvedev reached a peak share of 6.66% over the fifteen minutes, with an average audience of 579,176 spectators and 704,378 contacts.”
Sinner will look to continue the momentum at the Shanghai Masters as he will return to action on Saturday when he takes on Marcos Giron in the second round of the ATP 1000 event.
