One break point in four sets: Sinner beats Zverev again for back-to-back Wimbledons

One. That is how many break points Alexander Zverev forced in four sets of a Wimbledon final, and Jannik Sinner saved it. Sinner won 6-7(7), 7-6(2), 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday for a second straight Wimbledon title and a fifth Grand Slam, in their fifteenth meeting, his tenth win over Zverev in a row.

For two sets nobody could be separated. Twenty-four service games came and went without a break, Sinner forcing one break point at 4-4 in the first set, Zverev saving it, and the tiebreaks had to decide. The first was the best of Zverev's afternoon: a set point down at 6-7, he took the last three points to win it 9-7, and with it his first set against Sinner anywhere since Vienna last October, at the fifteenth time of asking his first on grass. The second tiebreak was the answer: Sinner ran it to 6-2 and levelled the final 7-2.

Then the pattern of nine straight Sinner wins reasserted itself. Zverev's only break point of the match came at 3-3 in the third set; Sinner erased it, broke in the next game, and served the set out 6-3 with a love game. In the fourth Sinner needed three break points at 3-3 before the game gave way, and at 5-4 he served out the championship, converting his first match point at 40-30.

The numbers describe a champion in charge of the margins. Sinner hit 58 winners against 25 unforced errors; Zverev hit 49 winners against 45 errors, and put 76 percent of his first serves in yet still spent the last two sets under siege. It is Sinner's fifth Grand Slam title at 24, his second Wimbledon in a row after beating Carlos Alcaraz in the 2025 final, and it moves the head-to-head with Zverev to 11-4, ten of those wins in an unbroken run since Cincinnati 2024.

For Alexander Zverev the fortnight remains the best Wimbledon of his career: a first final here, in the summer he finally won a major at Roland Garros. But this is now a fourth defeat in five Grand Slam finals, and the set he took on Sunday, however loudly Centre Court greeted it, was the first he had won against Sinner in nine months. Progress against this opponent is measured in sets; the matches keep ending the same way.

Match tale, 12 July 2026, sources: The Championships, Wimbledon; api-tennis