In the poll I see a clear predominance of Sinner's victory, a ratio of 3/4 that sees Sinner as the winner.
It's fair, although I wonder if this discrepancy is more due to Sinner's dominance on this surface, or to Zverev's history in slam finals.
Probably somewhere in between the two.
Obviously we know very well that on any type of surface other than grass, when Zverev plays at his highest level he can cause problems even for the greatest champions of the game.
He has shown this in the past, regardless of the fact that he then lost that type of match, especially in the majors.
The thing I debate is whether to leverage their matchup history to reach the conclusion that Sinner suffers from Zverev's game.
If we analyze their head-to-head matches specifically after Sinner's relatively surprising victory in the quarterfinals of the 2020 autumn version of Roland Garros, where Zverev apparently had the flu, from that moment to the semifinal of last year's Cincinnati the German won the next 4 challenges, but with the exception of the 2021 US Open where Sinner still had several opportunities to extend it to the fourth against a very inspired version of Zverev, they were all very balanced matches, in particular the one in Monte Carlo 2022 and obviously the one in the 2023 US Open, on a day with an off-the-charts humidity rate and where Sinner had cramps in the central phase.
All this to reach the conclusion that stating that Sinner suffers from the matchup with Zverev is rather misleading.
That Sinner who lost 4 consecutive direct clashes with Zverev between 2020 and 2023 was the same player who in that same period of time was unable to beat any top 5 player except Alcaraz.
For example, at a certain point he was 0-3 against Djokovic, 0-6 against Medvedev and 1-5 against Tsitsipas, as well as 1-4 with Zverev.
Here, for example, in that period he digested the matchup with the Greek less than the one with Zverev, the one with Medvedev let's not even talk about it.
Now it's a whole other version of Sinner, ergo, he's a finished player, so I would wait for Sunday's outcome before saying that he's still suffering from this matchup.
Even in the last semi-final in Cincinnati, super balanced and decided by the details and Sinner's better ability to play the important points, I would like to point out that Sinner was experiencing the worst moment of his 2024, he was in precarious physical conditions so much so that between Montreal and Cincinnati he risked losing twice in a row to a player like Rublev against whom a Sinner in good shape would never lose.
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