Jannik Sinner defeats Tomas Machac and reaches the quarter-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 .
After dominating a first set, the Italian struggled more than expected to break the Czech's resistance: in the end, he won 6-1, 6-7, 6-3 in two hours of play . This ended the South Tyrolean's record streak of 37 sets won in the 1000 meters.
Jannik dominated the first set, but in the second he struggled with a clear drop in energy, which, among other things, drastically reduced his first serve percentage.
So, from 2-1 Jannik, we find ourselves at 5-2, with the Czech serving, who has the set in hand. But Sinner reacts, recovering from both breaks and taking the set to a tiebreak, where Machac dominates, thanks to a few errors and the Italian's few first serves.
In the third set, Sinner regains his game and his first serve (74% against 46% in the second set) and doesn't suffer too much: he takes the lead with a break in the third game and closes out in the ninth by breaking his opponent's serve again, conceding only crumbs on his service games.
Tomorrow the quarter-finals will be against Felix Auger Aliassime , the Canadian number 7 in the world who defeated Ruud by retirement after winning the first set 7-5.
"It was a tough match. I may have had a bit of a drop in energy, but the important thing was to win the match somehow," Sinner commented. "Every day is different. We'll try to put in a good performance tomorrow. Now I have to recover as much as possible. I was feeling good before the match, but then I struggled a bit to find the right energy. It can happen, but I tried to get through the difficult moment. So I'm happy with how I managed to get out of this situation."
Matteo Berrettini is out, eliminated with a score of 6-3, 6-2 by the rising Brazilian star Joao Fonseca .
(Unioneonline)
