Jannik Sinner, the top seed and defending champion ended the French qualifier Terence Atmane\u2019s dream run at the Cincinnati Open with a 7-6 (4), 6-2 win to reach the final of the US Open warm-up event.<\/p>\n
Sinner, playing on his 24th birthday, won a remarkable 91% of his first-serve points, did not face a single break point during the 86-minute match and converted two of five break points in his first career meeting with Atmane, the world No 136.<\/p>\n
In the other semi-final, Carlos Alcaraz advanced with a 6-4, 6-3 win over the German third seed Alexander Zverev, who struggled physically during the match, to set up a rematch of this year\u2019s French Open and Wimbledon finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery, very tough challenge,\u201d Sinner said on court after being serenaded with Happy Birthday by the crowd. \u201cEvery time when you play against someone completely new it\u2019s very difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I had to be very, very careful and my mindset today was in a good spot. I feel like I handled situations on the court very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Italian world No 1 had his hands full throughout a tightly contested first set which featured an imperious serving display from both men and not a single break point opportunity for either player.<\/p>\n
Sinner, who lost only three points on serve in the opening set, held to love for a third consecutive game to force the tie-break, where Atmane handed his opponent the first point with a double fault and from there the Italian never looked back.<\/p>\n
The reigning US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon champion opened the second set with a nine-minute hold of serve, then held to love before finally breaking Atmane for a 3-1 lead that gave him the cushion he needed.<\/p>\n
Sinner followed that with another hold to love to go 4-1 up and all but end any hope for Atmane, who beat the top-10 players Taylor Fritz and Holger Rune en route to his maiden ATP Masters 1000 semi-final.<\/p>\n
With Atmane serving at 2-5 and looking to stay in the match, Sinner quickly jumped ahead 0-40 before sealing the win on his third match point when the Frenchman sent a forehand into the net.<\/p>\n
Alexander Zverev congratulates Carlos Alcaraz after their semi-final in Cincinnati. Photograph: Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Alcaraz-Zverev encounter was interrupted for 11 minutes early in the first set while paramedics tended to a spectator as the two players stood and watched together from the net.<\/p>\n
Shortly after play resumed, Alcaraz saved three consecutive break points to reach 2-2. Three games later, the Spaniard sent a brilliant low backhand volley to the open court for a break and 4-3 lead before closing out the frame on his serve.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz broke to open the second set but gave it right back in a game during which he gifted four double-faults to Zverev, who was suddenly struggling to move around the court and, after the game, sat against the back wall grimacing in pain.<\/p>\n
Zverev did well to finish the match but was barely going through the motions in the latter stages as Alcaraz had a love hold to go 5-3 up and then sealed the match with a break at love.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy for the final but feeling bad for Sasha,\u201d Alcaraz wrote on the camera lens after his win. \u201cWish you all the best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner, the top seed and defending champion ended the French qualifier Terence Atmane\u2019s dream run at the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[62,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-153065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115044082271307341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}