Jannik Sinner beats Alex de Minaur in National Bank Open final for 1st Masters 1000 title | CBC Sports

Italy’s Jannik Sinner defeated Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-1 on Sunday to win the National Bank Open for his first career Masters 1000 series title.

The seventh-seeded Sinner used his punishing ground strokes to great effect, forcing his unranked opponent to play defence for most of the match at Sobeys Stadium in Toronto.

Sinner closed out the opening set with a service break and kept the pressure on in the second set to close out the win in 89 minutes.

It was his second ATP Tour title of the season and he improved to 5-0 in head-to-head matchups against de Minaur.

WATCH | Sinner tops de Minaur for NBO title in Toronto:

Sinner was the first Italian to reach the men’s singles final of this tournament in the Open era. He’ll jump two positions to a career-high No. 6 in the new world rankings.

Earlier Sunday, El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands won the doubles title with a 6-3, 6-1 win over the third-seeded team of American Rajeev Ram and Britain’s Joe Salisbury.

Sinner earned $1.02 million  US of the $7.62-million overall purse with the victory. De Minaur banked almost $557,000 for the runner-up finish.

Arevalo and Rojer, who split about $312,000 for their win, beat de Minaur and Sinner in the first round of the doubles draw.

The WTA Tour will return to the York University venue next season. The men and women alternate between Montreal and Toronto each year.

The 2024 competition will be the last year that the 56-player main draw format is used. The tournament will expand to a 12-day, 96-player format starting in 2025.

Tournament director Karl Hale said next year’s schedule will be slightly different since the Paris Olympics are on the calendar.

Tennis will be played at the Summer Games from July 27-Aug. 4. The main draw of the Toronto event is scheduled to start on Aug. 6 — a Tuesday — and continue to a Monday night finish on Aug. 13.

Pegula dominates Samsonova in women’s final

American Jessica Pegula put on a dominant display in Montreal Sunday evening, defeating Liudmila Samsonova of Russia 6-1, 6-0 in a women’s singles final that never looked close to capture her first National Bank Open title.

It’s Pegula’s first WTA title this year and the third of her career. The 29-year-old, seeded fourth, last won a tournament at the Guadalajara Open in October last year.

Pegula, who took down sixth seed Coco Gauff and world No. 1 Iga Swiatek to reach the final, won in 49 minutes against a noticeably tired opponent who had already played once on Sunday.

The 15th-seeded Samsonova defeated Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 earlier to advance to the final.

The semifinal was originally scheduled for Saturday evening but had to be pushed due to rainy weather in Montreal, which subsided on a sunny but windy Sunday.

Samsonova, who also played two matches on Friday due to a week riddled with poor weather in Montreal, made numerous unforced errors in the final, including six double faults.

Pegula, meanwhile, was well-rested after beating world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the first semifinal Saturday afternoon before the weather took a turn for the worse — and it showed.

As much as Samsonova looked fatigued, Pegula also played flawlessly, winning 100 per cent of her first service points and going five-for-eight on break points.

A day after breaking Swiatek 11 times, Pegula was up to much of the same, hitting multiple return winners with her forehand to break Samsonova twice en route to taking the first set in 20 minutes.

The American even took that up a notch in the second set, converting three break points without dropping a single game.

In total, Pegula won 51 points to Samsonova’s 21.