Sinner earned his first title on clay at the entry level M25 event in early 2019 at Santa Margherita Di Pula, when his world ranking was No. 322. It would be his only win on clay until Sinner earned his first ATP tour-level title three years later, at the bottom-tier ATP 250 in Umag, Croatia (In a delicious irony, the beaten finalist was the top seed, a youngster named Alcaraz). Sinner would not win another clay event until this year.
The following spring, Sinner took Masters 1000 and Roland Garros losses to Holger Rune (Monte Carlo, semifinals), Franciso Cerundolo (Rome, fourth round), and Daniel Altmaier (Roland Garros, second round). In 2024, Sinner was beaten by Stefanos Tsitsipas (Monte Carlo semifinals), and a hip injury forced him to give Felix Auger-Aliassime a walkover in the Madrid quarterfinals. Alcaraz then got the better of Sinner in the Roland Garros semifinals.
Last year, a doping suspension caused Sinner to miss all of the clay season until his return at Rome, where he was foiled by Alcaraz, who also prevailed over Sinner in that epic Roland Garros final. Thus, it was hardly surprising when, this April, Sinner told reporters at Monte Carlo, “I never won anything big on this surface. So, I’m looking forward to it, trying to put myself in the position hopefully, and then we’ll see.”
