Tiebreak monster Sinner clears the first hurdle

After his fantastic tournament victory in Beijing, Jannik Sinner continued with the ATP Masters tournament in Shanghai on Saturday. For a long time, South Tyrol's tennis ace had a difficult time against the cheeky and strong outsider Marcos Giron. In the end it was enough to move into the next round: also thanks to Sinner's strong nerves in the tiebreak.

07 October 2023

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Just on Wednesday, South Tyrol's tennis ace won the ATP 500 tournament in Beijing in impressive fashion (SportNews reported). The Sesto native continued around 1.200 kilometers from the Chinese capital. At the Masters 1000 tournament in Shanghai, where Sinner enjoyed a bye in the first round, he met 30-year-old American Marcos Giron, number 80 in the world rankings, for the first time in his career. No wonder that the 22-year-old South Tyrolean went into the game as the clear favorite as the newly crowned number 4 in the world. Sinner didn't live up to his role for a long time, but in the end he won after 1:47 hours with 7:6 (9:7), 6:2 and is now in the 3rd round.

Due to heavy rain, the match was played in the stadium. In a hard-fought first set, outsider Giron presented himself cheekily and repeatedly put Sinner in dire straits. The result was a break in the second game and a 2-4 lead. The favorite, who missed one break point in the third game and two in the fifth game, appeared tired at times and repeatedly made hair-raising mistakes. But: Sinner also showed his class at times, showed morale, took the serve from Giron in the 1th game, then equalized and took the lead for the first time in this game in the 3th game.

Marcos Giron sometimes put Sinner in a lot of trouble. © APA/afp / HECTOR RETAMAL

But because the American continued to present himself strongly, including powerful serves into the center, causing trouble for Sinner and showing his best tennis, it went to a tiebreak. Giron played well there too. However, Sinner once again showed his class and demonstrated strong nerves: When the score was 6:3, the American missed 3 set points and later another. Sinner, on the other hand, immediately used his first and is becoming more and more of a tiebreak monster: In the last 5 sets, the 22-year-old from Sexten went to the tiebreak 4 times, and Sinner always prevailed - before today's match, twice in the final in Beijing against Daniil Medvedev and once in the semifinals against Carlos Alcaraz.

Sinner lives up to his role as favorite

In the second sentence there is a different picture. Sinner did what a favorite does and now presented himself more confidently. He took the outsider's serve away in the second game - to zero. However, Giron managed the rebreak to make it 2:2 with the second break ball. Sinner was not impressed by this and immediately broke again to zero - this time due to a mistake by Giron, who sent the ball unnecessarily out of bounds. The American's resistance now seemed to be finally broken, favorite Sinner followed up with power tennis. On his own serve, Giron came within 2:1 again in a hard-fought game, but he was no longer able to pose a real threat to Sinner. When the opponent served, the South Tyrolean converted his first match point in the game.

For Jannik Sinner it was the 50th win this season. This means he is also guaranteed to take part in the ATP Finals in Turin (November 12th to 19th). In Shanghai he will face Argentinian Sebastian Baez (ATP 3) in the third round on Sunday.

Schlagwörter: Tennis Jannik Sinner ATP Shanghai