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For one intense, gripping hour inside Miami Open’s stadium court, Alexander Zverev outperformed the modest expectations of his sceptical audience. Under sustained, suffocating pressure from the best returner in the world, he held his own serve and kept Jannik Sinner honest as a competitive second set culminated in a tie-break. Eight points in, nothing could separate them.

Things changed abruptly. At 4-4 on his own serve, Zverev set up a routine overhead that would have moved him narrowly ahead. Instead, the tension that comes with facing a player of Sinner’s calibre finally prevailed. Zverev crumbled, framing his smash into the net.

This point perfectly demonstrated the pressure Sinner imposes on all opponents these days, and it unsurprisingly proved his undoing. Moments later, after landing two excellent first serves, Sinner powered into the Miami Open final with a gritty 6-3, 7-6 (4) win.

On paper, this was the toughest semi-final matchup that Sinner could have faced, the No 2 player against the world No 3. However, the gap between the top two and the rest of the field is so great. Sinner entered the match with 11800 ranking points in the ATP live rankings, much more than double Zverev’s count of 5205. Zverev had initially led their head-to-head record 4-1, but since August 2024 Sinner has won their last seven encounters, winning their last 10 sets.

Still, Zverev is playing with far greater confidence since his five-set defeat to Carlos Alcaraz at the Australian Open. He served well and attacked his forehand with enough authority to hold his own from the baseline while frequently looking to close down the match. He played a good match, but he was still beaten in straight sets by a far better player armed with greater weapons in his game and mental toughness.

Sinner now stands a win away from clinching consecutive titles at Indian Wells and Miami Open, a feat now colloquially known as the Sunshine Double. He will be heavily favoured to win on Sunday as he faces the 21st seed Jiri Lehecka, who continued his own spectacular run by dismantling Arthur Fils, the 28th seed, 6-2, 6-2.

“Standing here again in the final means very much to me. Obviously we try to push now in a couple of days but at the same time, in any case, it has been an incredible swing,” said Sinner. “Trying to play as many matches as possible. That was my goal and I couldn’t do better so I’m very happy today.”

Ever since a dazed Sinner expressed his intention to retool his game with greater variation in the aftermath of his loss to Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open, all eyes have been on the Italian’s usage of his drop shots, slices and volleys. Yet the most impressive part of his four weeks on the US hard courts has actually been his serve, which he has taken to another level. Against Zverev, Sinner fired down 15 aces, landing 74% first serves in and winning 79% of points behind them. He has lost his serve just once over the past two weeks.

Earlier on Friday, Lehecka reached a Masters 1000 final for the first time in his career by producing one of his best performances. Fils had, in many ways, been the most interesting story of the tournament on the men’s side. The 21-year-old was competing in just his fourth tournament back after an eight-month injury layoff due to a stress fracture in his back. Having already reached a final in Doha and a quarter-final at Indian Wells, Fils broke new ground by reaching his first Masters 1000 semi-final after recovering from four consecutive match points down to defeat Tommy Paul in a final set tie-break.

However, while Fils looked mentally exhausted from his quarter-final efforts, he came up against a sublime Lehecka who simply did not put a foot wrong throughout the match. Lehecka, who has not dropped his serve at all in Miami, dominated with his massive serve as usual. But he also returned brilliantly and commanded the majority of rallies from on top of the baseline, striking the ball so cleanly off both wings. At 24 years old, Lehecka’s talent has been well known for some time and a big run to a significant final is not as surprising as it first appears. Now he will face one of the toughest challenges possible in the biggest match of his career.