Can anyone stop Jannik Sinner? Paris Masters review, WTA Finals kick-off and a legend retires

Welcome back to Tennis Unfiltered, the weekly podcast about tennis that does not hold back. Host James Gray risked his marriage this week by taking two hours out of his holiday to do the podcast, logging on from Athens to discuss the last seven days of tennis with Calvin Betton, Paris Masters-winning coach, and tennis writer and broadcaster George Bellshaw. Here are the stories they discussed: Jannik Sinner won his fifth Masters title and returned to world No 1, for a week at least with Carlos Alcaraz set to overtake him again next week. It also took Sinner to exactly 10,000 points for the 2025 season despite having served at three-month ban in the middle of it. Sinner beat Felix Auger-Aliassime (the indoor GOAT) in the final, having battered Alexander Zverev in the semi-final for the loss of just one game. Carlos Alcaraz meanwhile was knocked out by Cam Norrie, who maintains an impressive record against the Spaniard. But Norrie was beaten by Valentin Vacherot, who followed up his Shanghai title with proof that he is no flash in the pan, and moves into the top 30 in the world for the first time. In the best social media beef of the week, Zizou Bergs managed to catch both Reilly Opelka and Nick Kyrgios in a web of their own egos. The WTA Finals kicked off over the weekend in Riyadh, albeit not in particularly grand style. Coco Gauff was beaten by Jessica Pegula and served 17 double-faults, which meant missing more than a quarter of her second serves, and was broken nine times in all. It begs the question, do year-end finals ever really produce the best tennis? Plus Gauff claimed the WTA is “more interesting” because it has more grand slam champions, while Alcaraz and Sinner clean up on the men’s side Three breakout stars won titles on the WTA Tour in the meantime: Janice Tjen of Indonesia; Canada’s Victoria Mboko; and a 17-year-old from Austria named Lilli Tagger with a one-handed backhand and a grand slam winner in her box Rohan Bopanna has announced his retirement after 20 years on tour at the age of 45. He won 26 tour-level doubles titles, including the 2024 Australian Open doubles. That also took him to world No 1 at the age of 43, the oldest man ever to do so. He won 539 tour-level matches, won titles with 15 different partners and also picked up a mixed doubles grand slam title at Roland Garros in 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices