Novak Djokovic won a record-breaking seventh ATP Finals title on Sunday after beating local hero Jannik Sinner 6-3, 6-3 in Turin.
World number one Djokovic moves clear of retired great Roger Federer in victories at the season-ending tournament after denying Italian Sinner a triumph on home soil.
Djokovic came into the Finals at the end of a year which has brought three Grand Slams, taking his total to an all-time best of 24, and a 40th Masters 1000 title.
And he has crowned an incredible season — in which he also reached the Wimbledon final — with yet another record, comfortably seeing off two of the game’s best young players in the process.
Sinner was bidding to become the first ever Italian to claim a Finals crown and looked like the right man to do it after his impressive group stage win over Djokovic.
But the 22-year-old, like Carlos Alcaraz in Saturday’s semi-final, simply could not handle Djokovic, a man on a mission who hit his best form at exactly the right time in the tournament.
It is a testament however to how far Sinner has come in the past year that he had Djokovic’s tournament fate in his hands at the end of the group stage, when defeat by Holger Rune would have sent the Serb home early.
Sinner saved Djokovic’s skin and in the end paid for it in the final, but the quality of his performances at the Pala Alpitour has been a cause for much optimism in Italy and suggests that he should be a Grand Slam contender next season.