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After a fast start from Fritz, home favourite Sinner delivered an assured performance to the 12,000 fans cheering him on inside the Inalpi Arena. 

The emphatic result, coupled with De Minaur's straight sets loss to Daniil Medvedev earlier in the day, leaves the Australian facing an almost-insurmountable challenge to progress. 

De Minaur would need to defeat Fritz in straight sets and hope Sinner overcomes Medvedev in straight sets to force the group into a 'games won' count-back to determine second place.   

“It was a very tough match, we got to know each other very well in a Grand Slam final,” said Sinner, who defeated Fritz in this year’s US Open championship match. “We knew exactly what to expect today, he was very aggressive and I was prepared.

“I just tried to serve very well in the important moments, which I did. That was a very crucial game in the second set, I was down 0/30. If he breaks me there, the momentum could change.”

Unfazed by the daunting task that stood before him, Fritz put Sinner through his paces in the early stages of the contest. The 23 year-old, however, raised his game when required to register a one-hour, 40-minute triumph. 

In a gutsy eighth game, Fritz dug deep to hold serve from 0/40, but was unable to fend off Sinner further. In the 10th game, Sinner came alive to convert his fourth break point, according to Infosys ATP Stats, and secure the opener. Sinner was helped, however, by the American, who fired 16 unforced errors to his opponent's 11.

In a battle between two of the Tour’s purest strikers, Sinner showed signs of the blistering tennis that has propelled him to number-one in the ATP Rankings. This was underpinned in the seventh game of the second set, when Sinner struck a stunning backhand winner en route to holding serve from 0/30, shifting the momentum firmly in his favour. 

Chasing his Tour-leading eighth title of 2024, Sinner is returning to action in Turin after a month-long break from competitive tennis. The Italian, who finished runner-up at the 2023 ATP Finals, looks in strong contention to progress from the group, having not dropped a set.

Sinner will seek to extend his perfect 2-0 record in the Ilie Nastase Group when he takes on fourth seed Daniil Medvedev on Friday. Fritz, who is 1-1, aims to secure a crucial win against Alex de Minaur in his bid to advance to the semi-finals for a second time (2022). 

In a back-and-forth tussle with Alexander Zverev to end the year with the most wins, Sinner levelled the German with his Tour-leading 67th victory in 2024 and improved to 7-0 on indoor hard courts across the season.