This Week in Tennis: Keys, Sinner Win Australian… National Bank Open

Welcome to This Week in Tennis, where we catch up on all the latest and biggest stories from the ATP and WTA Tours.

Sinner wins second straight Australian Open

No. 1 seed Jannik Sinner dominated No. 2 Alexander Zverev 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 early Sunday morning to earn his second consecutive Australian Open title.

The 23-year-old Italian faced zero break points in the match and accumulated more winners and fewer unforced errors than his opponent. Zverev had high praise for Sinner, who has held the world No. 1 rank since last June.

“I’m serving better than him, but that’s it. He does everything else better than me. He moves better than me. He hits his forehand better than me. He hits his backhand better than me. He returns better than me. He volleys better than me,” Zverev said. “At the end of the day, tennis has five or six massive shots — like, massive factors — and he does four or five of them better than me. That’s the reason why he won.”

Sinner became the youngest man to win back-to-back Australian Opens since Jim Courier in 1992-93.

He is now 3-0 in Grand Slam finals, including a US Open title last September.

Keys Makes Magical Run in Melbourne

American Madison Keys won the first Grand Slam title of her career, defeating two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 early Saturday morning to capture the Australian Open title.

Keys ran through a gauntlet of seeded opponents on her way to the final, defeating 10th seed Danielle Collins, No. 6 Elena Rybakina, 28th seed Elina Svitolina and world No. 2 Iga Świątek to reach the finals in Melbourne for the first time at the tournament, and her first Slam final since the 2017 US Open.

The 29-year-old became the first player since Svetlana Kuznetsova at Roland-Garros in 2009 to win a Grand Slam title after defeating both the World No. 1 and World No. 2. With the victory, Keys’ ranking will soar to No. 7, matching the career-best she achieved in 2016.

Dabrowski stopped short

Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and partner Erin Routliffe reached the semifinals at the Australian Open for a second consecutive year but were once again unable to break through, falling to Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko 7-6, 3-6, 6-3.

“Honestly, we could have gone out in the first or the second round, so I'm really proud that we made it to the semifinals with not a lot of prep,” Dabrowski said. “I think we did amazing, considering.”

The duo was short on training time ahead of the tournament due to a rib injury to Routliffe that carried through the offseason. As a result, they were not able to train or enter a warm-up tournament.

The pair will likely compete in two WTA 1000 events in Doha and Dubai next month.

Click here for more news about Canadian tennis players.

All winners from last week:

Australian Open

Men’s singles: Jannik Sinner (1/3/19) d. Alexander Zverev
Women’s singles: Madison Keys (2/1/10) d. Aryna Sabalenka
Men’s doubles: Harri Heliovaara/Henry Patten
Women’s doubles: Katerina Siniakova/Taylor Townsend
Mixed doubles: Olivia Gadecki/John Peers

*(Titles in 2025/Grand Slam Titles/Career Titles)

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Feature Photo : Martin Sidorjak