Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner to meet again in ATP Finals showdown

TURIN, Italy (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have been playing each other nearly all year for the biggest titles in tennis.

Add one more important trophy that they will vie for on Sunday: the ATP Finals.

The top-ranked Alcaraz beat Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 6-4 and No. 2 Sinner defeated Alex de Minaur 7-5, 6-2 before his Italian home crowd in the semifinals on Saturday to set up another meeting between the two players who have distanced themselves from the rest of the field.

“I expect at least three to four people in the crowd cheering for me,” Alcaraz said with a smile. “It’s going to be really difficult. I’m just really happy to see Jannik in another final. Every time we face each other in a final we raise our level to the top.”

Alcaraz already secured the year-ending No. 1 ranking but will be contesting his first final at the event for the year's top eight players.

“The No. 1 means that I’ve been playing really good during the whole season, (on all) surfaces,” Alcaraz said. “He’s playing the best on indoor courts. We’re playing in front of his home crowd. I would say he’s the favorite.”

Sinner will be playing in his third consecutive final in Turin and aiming for his second consecutive trophy. The Italian hasn't dropped a set at the Finals since getting beaten by Novak Djokovic in the 2023 championship match — a run of 18 consecutive sets.

“These are matches I look forward to,” Sinner said. “Also to see for me where my level really is but at the same time it’s great before the off-season to have this matchup ... of course, I feel comfortable on an indoor hard court."

Sinner and Alcaraz have met in the last three Grand Slam finals: Alcaraz beat Sinner in a fifth-set tiebreaker to win the French Open; Sinner gained a measure of revenge by beating Alcaraz for the Wimbledon trophy; then Alcaraz again came out on top at the U.S. Open.

“Every matchup is different. We saw it in Rome and Paris. Even if it’s the same surface, it can change,” Sinner said.

Sinner also won the Australian Open — beating Alexander Zverev in the final — so he and Alcaraz each won two majors this year.

In all, it will be the sixth time that Alcaraz and Sinner meet this year. They also clashed in the Italian Open final (won by Alcaraz) and the Cincinnati Open final (won by Alcaraz when Sinner retired due to illness).

Alcaraz leads Sinner 10-5 in their career head-to-heads.

“The ranking doesn’t lie. They’re the two best players,” said Auger-Aliassime, who lost to both Sinner and Alcaraz this week. “Different game styles but both put extreme pressure on their opponent in different ways ... they keep showing up and playing good, so credit to them.”

Alcaraz applied pressure to Auger-Aliassime from the start and, like Sinner, improved to 4-0 this week.

Alcaraz led Auger-Aliassime 25-15 in winners and committed half as many unforced errors as his Canadian opponent, 10-20. The Spaniard called it his best performance of the tournament.

“I’m really happy with the level today,” Alcaraz said. “I played really solid, really aggressively.”

It's Alcaraz's third time at the Finals, although he withdrew from his first appearance in 2022 due to injury. Last year, he was eliminated in the group phase following losses to Casper Ruud and Zverev, beating only Andrey Rublev.

Auger-Aliassime beat Ben Shelton and Zverev in the group stage after losing to Sinner, and will finish the year at a career-high No. 5 after a strong indoor season.

Sinner improved to 13-0 against De Minaur in his career.

Sinner saved three break points in his opening service game after falling behind 0-40 and then finally managed to break De Minaur for a 6-5 advantage before serving the set out.

The second set was never really in question, as Sinner jumped out to a 4-0 lead.

“I was happy with how I served and with how I reacted in the important moments,” Sinner said.

Sinner extended his winning streak on indoor hard courts to 31 matches — also stretching back to that 2023 final against Djokovic. He hasn't dropped his serve this week.

Sinner’s first pro victory over De Minaur came in 2019 in the final of the Next Gen ATP Finals. Sinner has won 29 of the 31 sets they've played.

“I know how to beat him. It’s just not that easy to do,” De Minaur said. “You’ve got to hit the ball very hard, very flat, very deep and very close to the lines. It is something that I try to do, but it’s obviously not the easiest thing to do ... I need to serve well throughout the whole match. My serve dropped a little bit and could have been better.”

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz serves to Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz returns to Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner returns to Australia's Alex de Minaur during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner supporters watch his semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals against Australia's Alex de Minaur, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Australia's Alex de Minaur reacts during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals against Italy's Jannik Sinner, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner celebrates after winning semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals against Australia's Alex de Minaur , in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner returns to Australia's Alex de Minaur during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Australia's Alex de Minaur returns to Italy's Jannik Sinner during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner returns to Australia's Alex de Minaur during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner supporters watch his semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals against Australia's Alex de Minaur, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Italy's Jannik Sinner reacts during semifinal tennis match of the ATP World Tour Finals against Australia's Alex de Minaur, in Turin, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are climbing worldwide, and oil prices are easing Wednesday as hopes build that the war with Iran could end soon. Some of the moves are tentative, though, after financial markets have already seen similar bouts of optimism get quickly undercut several times.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 292 points, or 0.6%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher.

Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump said shortly before Wall Street began trading that Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”

“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

Trump had said the night before that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks. That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier Tuesday that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”

The worry on Wall Street has been that the war may last a long time and keep oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf out of global markets, which could create a brutal blast of inflation.

But hope has been quick to swing to doubt on Wall Street since the war with Iran began, triggering manic swings back and forth for financial markets. Trump has also made statements that lifted markets, only to see the gains quickly disappear after increasing his military threats against Iran. Investors say Trump’s statements are becoming less impactful for financial markets.

And oil prices remain high, even if they’ve eased so far this week. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was sitting at $101.16 following its declines, which is still up from roughly $70 before the war began.

U.S. gas prices rose again overnight to a national average of $4.06, according to the auto club AAA.

Iran hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait’s airport on Wednesday while airstrikes battered Tehran as the fighting continued. Iran also continues to hold a grip on the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes during peacetime.

“De-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,” Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics, said in a research note Wednesday.

“It’s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end ‘very soon,’” he wrote. “Do markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.”

The White House said Trump will deliver a public address Wednesday evening on the Iran war.

On Wall Street, the majority of stocks rose, with Big Tech powering the move higher. Gains of 2.8% for Alphabet and 0.8% for Nvidia were two of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

They helped offset a 13.1% drop for Nike, which fell even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said it gave some lackluster financial forecasts.

Hasbro fell 3.6% after the toy company found someone had gained unauthorized access to its computer network and is working to see what the full impact was.

In stock markets abroad, indexes leaped more than 1% in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Asian markets had even bigger gains.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5.2% after a survey by Japan’s central bank showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite Iran war worries.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said U.S. retailers made more money in February than economists expected. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing growth last month was slightly faster than economists expected. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.32% from 4.30% late Tuesday.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.

James Conti works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Philip Finale works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A screen displays financial information on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)