Why ‘The Demon’ is a nightmare match-up for Sinner in the Toronto Masters final, despite their head-to-head

Jannik Sinner leads Alex De Minaur 4-0 in the pair’s head-to-head prior to the Toronto Masters final, and yet, there’s a nagging feeling that the Australian will be a challenging opponent for Sinner to overcome.

On paper, the Italian will be a heavy favourite heading into the match. He’s world No 8, compared to De Minaur’s pre-tournament ranking of No 18. Sinner has been in two Masters finals before, while De Minaur is playing at this level for the first time. All in all, Sinner is the better player.

Despite all of this, here’s why De Minaur could be a tough match-up for Sinner in the Toronto final.

Sinner’s big chance, means added pressure

There’s one other head-to-head stat for Jannik Sinner that isn’t quite so advantageous—his record in Masters finals.

To date in his career, Sinner has made two finals at this level, losing both of them.

The Italian is only 22 years old, so it’s a bit soon to start making any broad-sweeping assumptions about his ability to perform under pressure, but the reality is, that’s exactly what Sinner will be under on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier this week, when Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, and a litany of other seeds crashed out of the Toronto Masters, it quickly became apparent that this was going to be Sinner’s big chance to break his Masters-level hoodoo, and lift an inaugural big title.

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But with such a gift-wrapped opportunity, comes the pressure to not mess it up. Sinner will be well aware of not wanting to go down 0-3 in Masters finals, and will know that a chance like this may not come around again any time soon.

Expect Jannik Sinner to understandably be a little tight on Sunday.

Long rallies and low errors expected from De Minaur

Here’s the thing about Sinner’s opponent, Alex De Minaur: he’s not going to beat himself.

De Minaur is one of the fastest, fittest players on Tour. In other words, the Australian will be willing to run all day, and send back everything Sinner fires his way.

In fact, a trademark of De Minaur’s matches this week has been the Australian’s ability to win long rallies by extracting errors from his opponents. Against Norrie, Fritz, Medvedev and Davidovich Fokina, De Minaur won the majority of 9+ shot rallies, consistently trading from the baseline until an opportunity arose to finish at the net, or an error was made from the other side.

Across De Minaur’s five matches so far in Toronto, here are the number of unforced errors the 24-year-old has struck: 10, 10, 12, 4 and 11. Considering he’s played 11 sets of tennis, 47 is not a lot of errors—that’s less than 4.3 per set. In contrast, his opponents have hit almost double that, with 98 unforced errors at a rate of nearly nine per set.

With all of the pressure on Sinner’s shoulders, sounds like prime territory for the Italian to cough up errors in long rallies.

De Minaur embracing the challenge in Toronto

If Jannik Sinner is tight on Sunday, there’s a good chance Alex De Minaur will be the exact opposite.

The Australian has already exceeded all expectations by making the Toronto final, a week after he made the title match in Los Cabos as well. Remember, prior to this week, De Minaur hadn’t even made a Masters quarter-final before.

Now, with his ranking surging to 12^th in the live rankings, a career-high, it’s hard to see the 24-year-old putting himself under too much pressure to win on Sunday.

“I’m going to go out there and enjoy it and compete until the end,” De Minaur said after his semi-final victory.

He also provided an insight into how he’ll approach the Toronto final, eluding that he’s not intimidated by the 0-4 head-to-head against Sinner.

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“I match up well against the bigger guys; right? The stronger guys,” said De Minaur.

“From my side of the court, I’ve got to play the right way. And that’s trying to be aggressive, trying to make them play that extra ball and make it as tough as I can for them.”

Chances are, De Minaur will make matters very tough for Sinner on Sunday.