Sinner’s Perpetual Push For Perfection

In professional sport, if you’re not improving, you’re going backwards.

So despite winning back-to-back ATP Masters 1000 titles in Indian Wells and Miami last month, Jannik Sinner’s team set about building on his toolkit in the short lead-in they had to the clay-court season.

Speaking after the Italian won his first Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters title — and first clay-court event at Masters 1000 level — coach Simone Vagnozzi outlined the steps that helped lead Sinner to the trophy.

“He took two days off, and on Tuesday we started a little bit to feel the court, the sliding on the court, because the movement is the one that is more different from hard court to clay court.

“And then we started to play a little bit with more spin, open the angles a little bit more, tried some with dropshots, some with kick. So day by day, we improve all this tactical and movement stuff. Then we try on court in the match.”

Sinner ran up his Masters 1000 set-winning streak to 37 before needing three sets to defeat Tomas Machac in the quarter-finals. But aside from that blemish, the team was happy with his progress through the draw, which included an eighth consecutive win over World No. 3 Alexander Zverev, further underlining the gulf between Sinner, Alcaraz and the rest of the ATP Tour.

“I think from after the first two matches, he started to feel his game better,” Vagnozzi said. “More dropshots, more variation with the height of the ball, with the serve. So we are really, really impressed about his level here.”

Sinner, who has now won 22 consecutive matches at Masters 1000 level, joins Alcaraz with eight titles at this tier. Beginning his 67th week as World No. 1 on Monday after displacing Alcaraz — who has spent 66 weeks at No. 1 during his career — Sinner has now won seven of the nine Masters 1000 events, needing Madrid and Rome (where he was a finalist last year) to complete the set.

“It’s an amazing week,” Sinner said. “Some great, great matches from my side. So very, very happy. Tried to increase my level match after match. Winning my first big title on this surface means also a lot to me.

“Every day I wake up and tried to improve and then tried to get better as a player, and here really we did day by day trying to understand what the best game style is against every opponent, because I haven’t played the same kind of tennis against everyone. We changed small, small things.”

The shot of a champion 💫@janniksin #RolexMonteCarloMasters pic.twitter.com/3EWT3WK6vc

— Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters (@ROLEXMCMASTERS) April 12, 2026

Sinner becomes the first player since Novak Djokovic to win the first three Masters 1000s of the season and joins Djokovic and Rafael Nadal as the only players to win four consecutive tournaments at this level, dating back to his Rolex Paris Masters title last November. (He also won the Nitto ATP Finals last year without dropping a set.)

Will Sinner push on and attempt to win a fifth Masters 1000 in Madrid, which begins 10 days from now? There was no clear answer from his champion’s press conference.

“It’s going to be good having some days off now, away from the courts,” Sinner said. “It was everything quite hectic from one tournament to the other. And then we see what’s coming next.”