Jannik Sinner explains the unusual thing he did against Terence Atmane to win their semifinal at the Cincinnati Open

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Jannik Sinner has now reached his second consecutive Cincinnati Open final after beating French qualifier Terence Atmane.

Sinner has continued a winning streak against French players after ending the breakthrough run of Atmane, beating him 7-6(4) 6-2.

Even prior to the match, Atmane made a big claim about Sinner, something that he backed up in his latest performance.

Despite this potentially looking like a routine victory for Sinner, he has now admitted he changed something about his game to play Atmane.

Jannik Sinner admits to changing his serve against Terence Atmane

Despite being the world number one for 62 weeks and counting, Sinner still believes he has improvements to make.

One of those is his serve, something that Sinner has even been seen practicing after matches where he has not been satisfied with it in Cincinnati.

However, that was not the case following his victory over Atmane, where Sinner won 91% of his points on first serve and hit six aces.

With Atmane being a left-handed player, Sinner told Tennis Channel after the match that he was trying to switch things up to adapt to this and also the Frenchman’s deep return position.

“Yeah, today I served in a different way. Obviously…serving against a leftie is a bit different, so I tried to you know mix up quite well my serving spots,” said Sinner. “He’s a great returner too, he’s just far back, so I tried to mix up with sometimes serve and volley, which is not usually my gamestyle, but at the same time I have to do it if I want to become a better tennis player.

“So, yeah today the serve was on point, maybe the first set I won with a little bit of experience, was a bit more solid in the breaker and then got lucky you know to get the break in the second set, so I’m very happy.”

Sinner’s increased focus on coming to the net certainly paid off, as he won seven of the eight points where he attempted to do so.

What is Jannik Sinner’s record in finals?

Sinner now moves into his fifth final of the 2025 season, where he has only played six tournaments.

After Carlos Alcaraz beat Alexander Zverev, it confirmed that Sinner will now play four consecutive finals against his Spanish rival.

The last time they played was at Wimbledon, where Sinner ended the streak of Alcaraz to beat him for the first time since October 2023.

Sinner’s overall record in finals is impressive, with a 74% win rate, and that is even more heightened on hard courts.

The Italian has only lost five of his 22 previous hard court finals, with his last defeat coming when Alcaraz beat Sinner at the China Open last year.

Sinner and Alcaraz will go head-to-head for silverware once again when they play in the Cincinnati Open final on Monday, August 18.