Jannik Sinner v Learner Tien live: China Open final latest score and updates after Carlos Alcaraz shock

Emphatic from Sinner. A double-fault brings up two more break point opportunities for the Italian. He swarms Tien with pressure to the backhand side and leaps into the overhead to take the double-break.

Sinner looks so comfortable on these hard courts against anyone other than Alcaraz. He blasts another forehand winner down the line and takes the game as Tien crunches a forehand halfway up the net.

Tien gets on the board – a running forehand winner on the opening point will be a boost to his confidence. The American’s serve is vulnerable and there is a second double-fault, but he overcomes it to win a couple of exchanges from the baseline.

Sinner consolidates the opening break. He built into a comfortable position with an ace out wide and tried to mix it up on game point with a drop shot that Tien reached and put away.

Sinner wins the next point on the forehand exchange and has made an assured start, as you would expect.

Oof. An ominous start as Tien double faults on his opening point before Sinner crunches forehand winners to move to 0-40.

Tien digs in, and there are a couple of errors from Sinner, but the American is unable to keep up with the World No 2 in the baseline rally.

He shoots long and Sinner gets the opening break.

At just 19, Learner Tien is bidding to become the youngest American man to win an ATP Tour title since Andy Roddick in 2002.

But he faces a extremely difficult task in taking down Sinner, who has a 22-2 record on hard courts this season.

Both of those defeats came to Carlos Alcaraz.

Here we go! Learner Tien steps out onto the court and a packed house in Beijing ahead of his first ATP Tour Final – he is followed onto court by Jannik Sinner, who is playing in his third consecutive China Open final and 30th overall.

Jannik Sinner is through to his ninth consecutive final at a hard-court event, a run that is well over a year long and goes back to last season’s Cincinnati Open.

Sinner, though, has lost his last two finals, the first by retirement against Carlos Alcaraz in Cincinnati and then his US Open final defeat to Alcaraz last month.

He will be playing his 30th ATP Tour final against Learner Tien, who is playing his first. Sinner has a 20-9 record in finals – with a 17-7 record on hard courts.

Carlos Alcaraz has pulled out of the Shanghai Masters just hours after winning his eighth title of the season at the Japan Open.

The World No 1 defeated Taylor Fritz 6-4 6-4 in Tokyo to continue his dominant form but revealed he has been “struggling with some physical issues”.

The 22-year-old overcame an injury scare in his opening match against Sebastian Baez in Tokyo – where he hurt his left ankle and ignored pleas from his team to retire.

Alcaraz’s decision to pull out of the Shanghai Masters gives Jannik Sinner an opportunity to close the gap to World No 1 if he can defend his Shanghai title and offers the Italian some hope of regaining the top spot this season.

Sinner lost last season’s China Open final to Alcaraz.

Jannik Sinner underlined his dominance on hardcourts in the Asian swing of tournaments by outlasting Australian third seed Alex de Minaur 6-3 4-6 6-2.

Sinner made a typically fast start in his bid to secure an 11th straight victory over De Minaur, breaking the world number eight to love for a 4-2 lead, but he had to battle hard in the next game to hold serve.

The 2023 China Open champion had no trouble wrapping up the first set from there but ran into trouble early in the next, appearing to struggle physically at times, before tight holds helped him level at 3-3 and 4-4.

“I have one night to recover. I’m going to be fine,” Sinner said. “In the finals you have even more adrenaline and more will to play as best as you can. I’m looking forward to it, finals are very special.

“It’s another final for me this season. It’s a great result again.”