London - 13/07

Good morning and welcome back to TIE-Breakfast: all the tennis you need over breakfast.

Ace Cream's daily newsletter during Masters 1000 and Grand Slams, every morning at 8:30.

Today is Monday 13 July, in London it's 07:30 and it's 20 degrees. Okay, let's go.

Today's breakfast

• 🇮🇹 Sinner confirms himself as Wimbledon champion, a historic back-to-back
• 🇫🇮 Heliövaara and Patten triumph again in the men's doubles
• 📅 With the Slam behind us, the tour restarts today on clay
• 🇮🇹 The Italians in the spotlight across Bastad, Gstaad and Umag

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY:

🇮🇹 Sinner Confirms Himself as King of Wimbledon

Jannik Sinner beat Alexander Zverev 6-7, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4 after three hours and forty-six minutes, claiming his second consecutive title at the Championships. It's his fifth Slam and the sixth trophy of an already enormous 2026 season, a result that places him in the select group of ten men to have defended the Wimbledon title in the Open era.

For a set it looked as though Zverev's resistance — back in a Slam final after his triumph in Paris — might genuinely complicate things, then the second-set tie-break put everything back in order and from there Sinner managed with the composure we've come to know. More than the confirmation in the numbers, what strikes you is the ease with which he moved through the tricky phases of the match, never giving the impression of losing the thread. Matches like this, against an opponent full of confidence and on a stage of this kind, usually tell you where a player stands more than any ranking.

🇫🇮 Heliövaara and Patten Back on the Doubles Throne

In the men's doubles Harri Heliövaara and Henry Patten got past Marcelo Arévalo and Mate Pavić 7-6(4), 7-6(3), closing out two sets without ever conceding a break and reclaiming the London title. For Patten it's a second Wimbledon triumph, a milestone no Briton had reached in the Open era.

On a Sunday told almost entirely by the singles, a win like this risks slipping into the background, and yet doubles at the Championships preserves a tradition worth not forgetting. Their steadiness in the two tie-breaks says plenty about the nerve of a pair that seems to move on grass with particular ease.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY:

Wimbledon has closed its doors, but tennis takes no breaks: from today the tour restarts on clay, with three ATP 250s running at the same time and the women's draw getting back underway.

• ATP Bastad - Luciano Darderi arrives as the number 2 seed and tries to defend the title he won last year on Swedish clay, where we also find Stefano Travaglia and Andrea Pellegrino.
• ATP Gstaad - Lorenzo Sonego opens against the young Austrian Joel Schwaerzler, while Federico Cinà has also come through qualifying into the Swiss draw, in a tournament that the altitude always makes a little different from the rest.
• ATP Umag - Matteo Arnaldi leads the Italian contingent as the number 4 seed, with Marco Cecchinato having earned a place in the main draw by coming through qualifying.
• WTA Iasi - the women's tour restarts too, with the Romanian tournament gathering a good number of the players left on the fringes of the big London stage.

Read more

• Sinner champion again, a historic back-to-back
• Sinner successfully defends Wimbledon crown
• ATP Bastad, the draw: Darderi aims to defend the title
• Umag, Gstaad and Bastad, the draws: six Italians at the start
• 2026 ATP & WTA Summer Swing Preview: Umag, Gstaad, Bastad, Iasi and Athens

Enjoy your breakfast and have a great day.

See you tomorrow at 08:30 with TIE-Breakfast