Cincinnati, Aug 19
Carlos Alcaraz won his sixth title of the season at the Cincinnati Open on Monday after fierce rival Jannik Sinner was forced to retire early in the first set into their championship-match clash.
The final would last just 23 minutes as the top-ranked and top-seeded Sinner unable to play on due to illness. Only five games into the match, the Italian informed chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani that he could not continue. The finally tally, 5-0, ret., gives Alcaraz the eighth ATP Masters 1000 title of his career.
As the defending champion, Sinner was bidding to become the first player to go back-to-back here since Roger Federer in 2014-15. It marks only the second time in the Open Era that a player has retired in the Cincinnati men’s final. Novak Djokovic was forced to retire in 2013 due to a shoulder injury trailing, 6-4, 3-0.
The title is Alcaraz’s first in Cincinnati. In 2023, he squandered a championship point against Djokovic, dropping a three-hour, 49-minute, 5-7, 7-6(7), 7-6(4) epic that still stands as the longest best-of-three-sets final in ATP Tour history. He is the third Spaniard to claim the men’s title after Carlos Moya (2002) and Rafael Nadal (2013).