The Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Australia — There’s all sorts of ways beyond merely the score to measure just how dominant Jannik Sinner was while outplaying and frustrating Alexander Zverev during the 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory Sunday that earned the 23-year-old Italian a second consecutive Australian Open championship.

The zero break points Sinner faced. Or the 10 he accumulated. The 27-13 advantage in points that lasted at least nine strokes. Or the way Sinner accumulated more winners, 32 to 25, and fewer unforced errors, 27 to 45. The way Sinner won 10 of the 13 points that ended with him at the net. Or the way he only let Zverev go 14 of 27 in that category, frequently zipping passing shots out of reach.

Well, here’s is one more bit of evidence: what Zverev said about Sinner.

“I’m serving better than him, but that’s it. He does everything else better than me. He moves better than me. He hits his forehand better than me. He hits his backhand better than me. He returns better than me. He volleys better than me,” Zverev said. “At the end of the day, tennis has five or six massive shots — like, massive factors — and he does four or five of them better than me. That’s the reason why he won.”

High praise from a guy who is, after all, ranked No. 2. Sinner has held the No. 1 spot since last June and is not showing any signs of relinquishing it. This was the first Australian Open final between the men at No. 1 and No. 2 since 2019, when No. 1 Novak Djokovic defeated No. 2 Rafael Nadal — also in straight sets.

“It’s amazing,” Sinner said, “to achieve these things.”

The “things” include being the youngest man to leave Melbourne Park with the trophy two years in a row since Jim Courier in 1992-93, and the first man since Nadal at the French Open in 2005 and 2006 to follow up his first Grand Slam title by repeating as the champion at the same tournament a year later.

Sinner was asked later whether he felt more relief or excitement when he raised his arms after the last point was his.

“This one was joy. We managed to do something incredible this time, because the situation I was in was completely different from a year ago here,” he said. “I had more pressure.”

Keys upsets Sabalenka

MELBOURNE, Australia — When Madison Keys stepped into Rod Laver Arena at 7:37 p.m. on Saturday night ahead of the Australian Open final, she strode right past the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup, the trophy that goes to the women’s champion and was placed on a pedestal near the entrance to the court.

Keys didn’t break stride. Didn’t stop to stare. That bit of hardware then was placed near the net for the pre-match coin toss, close as can be to where the American stood. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel real. Also right there was her opponent, No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion at Melbourne Park, who would not make things easy on this cool, breezy evening.

Exactly 2¢ hours — and one 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 victory over Sabalenka — later, there was Keys, smiling the widest smile while holding that silver trophy with both hands, a Grand Slam champion for the first time at age 29. Keys was considered a future star before she was a teen, and this was her second chance to play for a major title: The first ended in a lopsided loss at the 2017 U.S. Open, an experience that taught her she would need to be able to play through nerves.

It was only after accepting she might never capture a Slam title, and would be fine with that — a change that came after years of therapy — that Keys actually got there.

“From a pretty young age, I felt like if I never won a Grand Slam, then I wouldn’t have lived up to what people thought I should have been. That was a pretty heavy burden to kind of carry around,” said Keys, who reached her first major semifinal a decade ago in Australia .

“So I finally got to the point where I was proud of myself and proud of my career, with or without a Grand Slam. I finally got to the point where I was OK if it didn’t happen. I didn’t need it to feel like I had a good career or that I deserved to be talked about as a great tennis player,” she said. “I feel like finally letting go of that kind of internal talk that I had just gave me the ability to actually go out and play some really good tennis to actually win a Grand Slam.”