diff --git a/spring-cloud-sleuth-zipkin/src/main/java/org/springframework/cloud/sleuth/zipkin2/ZipkinAutoConfiguration.java b/spring-cloud-sleuth-zipkin/src/main/java/org/springframework/cloud/sleuth/zipkin2/ZipkinAutoConfiguration.java
index 81075ecd5..2c64bb7f4 100644
--- a/spring-cloud-sleuth-zipkin/src/main/java/org/springframework/cloud/sleuth/zipkin2/ZipkinAutoConfiguration.java
+++ b/spring-cloud-sleuth-zipkin/src/main/java/org/springframework/cloud/sleuth/zipkin2/ZipkinAutoConfiguration.java
@@ -85,17 +85,11 @@ public class ZipkinAutoConfiguration {
 			ZipkinProperties zipkin,
 			Sender sender
 	) {
-		final AsyncReporter<Span> reporter = AsyncReporter.builder(sender).queuedMaxSpans(
-				1000) // historical constraint. Note: AsyncReporter supports memory bounds
+		return AsyncReporter.builder(sender)
+				.queuedMaxSpans(1000) // historical constraint. Note: AsyncReporter supports memory bounds
 				.messageTimeout(zipkin.getMessageTimeout(), TimeUnit.SECONDS)
 				.metrics(new ReporterMetricsAdapter(spanMetricReporter))
 				.build(zipkin.getEncoder());
-		return new Reporter<Span>() {
-			@Override public void report(Span span) {
-				reporter.report(span);
-				reporter.flush();
-			}
-		};
 	}
 
 	@Bean