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Competing in his first match since he lifted the Rolex Shanghai Masters trophy on 13 October, Sinner responded superbly to dropping serve in the third game of the match against De Minaur. He wrapped victory in 85 minutes at Inalpi Arena to move to 1-0 in Ilie Nastase Group.

“Considering [how long since I last played], I’m very happy,” Sinner said. “I started off with some unforced errors. He was playing great in the beginning of the match, so I just tried to stay there mentally, knowing that hopefully at some point my tennis would arrive. It arrived quite early, and I started to return very well.

“My serve, for sure I have to improve if I want to [win] the next match. Against Taylor [Fritz] for example, today he played really well. Let’s see, but today I’m very pleased about the win and hopefully this can give me confidence for the next one.”

A finalist at the ATP Finals a year ago, Sinner this year returned to Turin as the first Italian world number-one in PIF ATP Rankings history. Despite his early lapse on serve against De Minaur, the 23 year-old showed few signs of nerves in his first tour-level match on home soil for 12 months. He pulled De Minaur around the court with heavy groundstrokes off both wings and was consistently aggressive on return.

After winning four straight games from 1-2 en route to the opening set, Sinner notched the decisive break of the second set in the fifth game. He completed victory to the delight of his home crowd, which included some of his fellow Italian sports stars: His fellow ATP stars Flavio Cobolli and Lorenzo Sonego, WTA World No. 4 Jasmine Paolini, and former Italy and Juventus football star Giorgio Chiellini were among those cheering Sinner on.

“It has to be the crowd,” said Sinner, when asked for his favourite thing about playing at home. “It has to be the energy. I love to play at home. It’s a huge honour, and I was just looking forward to it. Today was a great night. I didn’t play Rome [this year], so it was the first match [in 2024] in Italy. The welcome was very warm, very amazing. I can’t wait for the next one.”