Home favourite Jannik Sinner became the first Italian to reach the title match at the ATP Finals as he continued his unbeaten week in Turin with a three-set victory over 2020 champion Daniil Medvedev.
The 22-year-old triumphed 6-3 6-7 (4-7) 6-1 on Saturday afternoon and will now face the winner of the heavyweight semi-final between world No 1 Novak Djokovic and No 2 Carlos Alcaraz, which takes place on Saturday evening.
Sinner heads into Sunday’s final with a 4-0 record in this year’s event, having defeated Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Holger Rune in the round-robin stage and now world No 3 Medvedev in the last four.
Medvedev, who was looking to reach his 10th final of the season, had the first opportunity to secure a break of serve at 1-1 in the opening set, but Sinner stood firm and instead secured a decisive break of his own in the next game before holding serve for the rest of the set to see it out.
The Russian levelled up the match by winning a second-set tiebreak, only for Sinner to breeze through the final set and seal victory with a backhand winner which secured his third victory in a row against Medvedev, after losing their first six meetings.
The in-form Sinner has now won his last six matches against players ranked in the world’s top five, with those three successes against Medvedev backed up by one each against Djokovic, Alcaraz and Andrey Rublev.