NEW YORK (AP) — Jannik Sinner has taken the first two sets of the U.S. Open final Sunday and is closing in on his second Grand Slam title of the year.
Sinner has a 6-3, 6-4 lead over Taylor Fritz, who would need a second straight five-set victory to become the first U.S. man in 21 years to win a major title.
The top-ranked Sinner broke Fritz's serve three times in the 41-minute first set, and then he broke again to close out the second set. The 12th-seeded Fritz had been broken only nine times in his first six matches at Flushing Meadows.
In front of a crowd that included Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Fritz was trying to end a 21-year major title drought for American men.
A victory for Fritz would be the first Grand Slam singles title for an American man since Andy Roddick in 2003. Sinner is trying for his second major championship of the season.
The match began shortly after 2 p.m. under a sunny sky at Arthur Ashe Stadium on a 70-degree Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) day.
The No. 1-ranked Sinner is 34-2 on hard courts in 2024 with four titles, including at the Australian Open in January. The 23-year-old Italian is on a 10-match winning streak. Following his win at the Cincinnati Open last month, it was revealed that he had been exonerated in a doping case after testing positive for an anabolic steroid twice in March.
The 12th-seeded Fritz, a 26-year-old Californian, reached his first major final by outlasting fellow American Frances Tiafoe in five sets on Friday. That allowed Fritz to become the first man from the United States to play for a Grand Slam title since Roddick lost to Roger Federer in 2009 at Wimbledon.
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
