“To win the biggest tournaments in the world, you have to beat the best. And Jannik is the best in the world right now.”

Alexander Zverev arrives at Sunday’s Mutua Madrid Open final chasing a win he has not managed since the 2023 US Open. The No. 2 seed reached his first title match of the season on Manolo Santana Stadium by ending Alexander Blockx’s strong run and snapping a six-match losing streak in 1000-level semifinals.

Zverev’s week included a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Flavio Cobolli earlier in the draw, and he carried that momentum into the match with Blockx. While Blockx saved a pair of break points to hold for 5-4 in the second set, Zverev broke the next time he had the chance and closed out a 6-2, 7-5 win.

As a two-time former champion in Madrid with nine career clay-court titles, Zverev will try to halt a remarkable run by Jannik Sinner. Sinner comes into the final on a 22-match win streak and is attempting to become the first man ever to win five consecutive ATP Masters 1000 trophies since the series began in 1990.

In the victories that brought Sinner to his first Madrid final, he defeated Zverev in the semifinal rounds of 2025 Paris and the first three 2026 Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo. That sequence has left Zverev without a win over Sinner since that 2023 major, and Sinner has run off eight straight victories against Zverev following a four-match swing in the German’s favor earlier in their rivalry. Their last 12 sets have been swept by the four-time major champion.

“Generally, I’m feeling well. I look forward to the final,” Zverev said. He acknowledged the scale of the task ahead: “He’s world No. 1, and hasn’t lost a match since beginning of February. Right now he’s definitely the best player in the world,” Zverev said in his press conference. “I have to play very, very good tennis to have a chance. But I know I’m capable of doing that, and I will try to do my best on Sunday.”

Jannik Sinner advanced to his first Madrid final by defeating Arthur Fils 6-2, 6-4 in the semifinals of the Mutua Madrid Open. The straight-sets victory closed the only gap in Sinner’s Masters 1000 résumé: Madrid had been the sole tournament at that level where he had not yet reached a final.

The world No. 1 has now reached the final at all nine Masters 1000 events. At 24 years old, Sinner is the youngest player to complete that career set since the Masters 1000 tier was established in 1990. He becomes the fourth player overall to achieve the feat, following the members of the Big 3.

The Madrid semifinal also represented another milestone. The win over Fils marked Sinner’s 350th tour-level victory. Born in 2001, he is the first man born in the 2000s — and the first since 1999 — to reach 350 tour wins.

Sinner’s record at Masters 1000 events now stands at 116-29, an exact 80.0 percent winning percentage. That places him alongside two of the sport’s best as the only men in Masters 1000 history with an 80.0 percent or higher winning rate, after Nadal (82.0 percent) and Djokovic (81.4 percent).

The Madrid result combines two forms of career progress: a long-missing final at a single Masters site and the accumulation of consistent success across the tour. Both milestones underline the rapid ascent and sustained performance that have characterized Sinner’s career to date. With the Madrid final now secured, the focus will shift to whether he can convert this latest run into another title at a Premier Masters event.

Alexander Zverev advanced to his fifth straight ATP Masters 1000 semifinal after a commanding win at the Mutua Madrid Open.

The two-time champion beat Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 6-4 to register his 25th victory of the season. Zverev surged to a 5-0 lead in the opening set and kept control through the finish, closing the match with a +4 differential from 23 winners and 19 unforced errors. His serve produced 12 aces and a 9.5 serve quality rating.

This semifinal marks the end, for now, of a streak in which Zverev repeatedly crossed paths with Jannik Sinner; this time he avoided that matchup. The run of results stretches back to the 2025 Paris Rolex Masters.

Zverev, who remains No. 3 in the rankings, is seeking his first title since winning in Munich last April. Cobolli had ended Zverev’s chance to retain that Munich crown earlier in the season.

“No revenge, I love Flavio. He’s one of my favorite guys on tour,” insisted Zverev during his ATP Media interview with Ursin Cadereas. “This is sport. Sport can change very quickly. In Munich, he played an amazing match. I didn’t play a very good match. Today, maybe it was the opposite.”

With the victory Zverev, the Hamburg native, now holds 179 clay-court wins, the most by any German male player in the Open Era. Despite that milestone, a stubborn problem remains: he has lost six previous Masters 1000 semifinals and has yet to break that sequence.

“Of course, I need to get past this stage now,” he laughed.

Zverev’s opponent in the Madrid semifinal will be Alexander Blockx. The 21-year-old Belgian, last December’s runner-up at the Next Gen ATP Finals, eliminated the reigning champion Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 to reach his first Masters 1000 semifinal.

“I think he has great spirit when he’s on the tennis court. I enjoy watching him play,” commented Zverev.