"That's impressive," Ljubicic analyzes Sinner's match against Auger-Aliassime at the ATP Finals

Ivan Ljubicic analyzed Jannik Sinner's first match at the ATP Finals against Félix Auger-Aliassime, in a replay of the Paris Masters 1000 final.

As the defending champion, Sinner returned to Turin to compete in the ATP Finals. For his opening match this year, the Italian dominated Félix Auger-Aliassime (7-5, 6-1). Notably, the Italian won 100% of the points behind his first serve in the opening set. After the match, Ivan Ljubicic, the High Performance Director of the French Tennis Federation, reflected on the performance of the world number 2.

"As soon as he manages to plant both feet on the ground, I wouldn't say he hits at full power, but he certainly gets close. It's impressive. For me, he is very relaxed. He is always balanced and, as soon as his feet are well set, he goes at full speed on both sides.

That's modern tennis. When I was young, there was an opponent's backhand or forehand that wasn't top-level, so you would exploit that weakness. Jannik (Sinner)'s tactical solution was to target the Canadian's left side, meaning his backhand.

He did this a lot with a wide serve that opened up the court for him. Félix (Auger-Aliassime) has a lot of difficulty hitting cross-court: indeed, when he hits a backhand, he tends to play towards the center and finds himself in a position where he has to hit the shot cross-court or risk going down the line. It was on that side that Sinner scored a lot of points in the rallies," stated Ljubicic for Tennis World Italia.