Madrid (Spain) – Italian Jannik Sinner continues to perform exploits on the circuit in 2024. Champion of three of the first five tournaments he played in the season, in addition to making semis in the other two, the 22-year-old is already in the quarter-finals of the Masters 1000 in Madrid. This Tuesday, he came from behind and had to react against the Russian Karen Khachanov, scoring a 5/7, 6/3 and 6/3 comeback in 2h10 of the match.
With the qualification, Sinner becomes the sixth player since 2011 to reach the third-to-last stage in the first four Masters 1000 of the year. Before him, only the Spaniard Rafael Nadal (2011), the Swiss Roger Federer (2011), the Serbian Novak Djokovic (2012), the Czech Tomas Berdych (2015) and the Canadian Milos Raonic (2016) had achieved this feat. Interestingly, like the Italian, they had all also reached at least the quarterfinals at the Australian Open.
Furthermore, the current world number 2 reaches this stage in a 1000-level event for the 12th time in his career, and the first in Madrid. Previously, his best result at Caixa Mágica had been the round of 16 in 2022. Last year, he did not compete in the tournament. With this, he already has 200 points in the ranking and is gradually trying to reduce the advantage of leader Novak Djokovic, which was 1,330 points before the competition started.
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In the next phase, Sinner will face the winner of the duel between Félix Auger-Aliassime and Casper Ruud. The Italian has a negative record of two defeats in two games against the Canadian, one of them in Madrid two years ago, and he got the better of both meetings with the Norwegian, both on the hard court in Vienna in 2020 and 2021.
The eliminated Khachanov is unable to repeat last year’s result, when he reached the quarter-finals, and will lose an important 80 points in the rankings that will make him fall from 17th to 18th place, with his place in the top 20 threatened if he doesn’t do well in Rome. . More than that, he is exactly 300 points away from 16th place, which would give him a more comfortable position in the Roland Garros draw.
Few chances in the first two stages
With ample control over the servers, Sinner was the only one to concede break-points in the opening set, saving three in the third game. After that, it was only in the 11th game that the Italian had his service threatened again and ended up allowing Khachanov to gain the necessary advantage to make it 1-0 on the scoreboard.
In the second half, opportunities for a break were once again scarce, and Sinner took advantage of the only chance of the entire set in the second game, taking the lead to tie the game. He managed to increase the use of points gained with the first serve from 74% to 83%, but the difference was in the balls with the second serve, increasing from 50% to 71%.
The match then went to the decisive end and Sinner had to save a break in the second game and another in the fourth, before getting a break in his favor. After that, the Italian managed to play more loosely, lost just one point on his serve and headed for victory, beating Khachanov’s serve once again with a beautiful right hand on the parallel.
