World No. 1s Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek both turned around losing situations on Saturday to move into the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Open.
Sinner prevented rival Andrey Rublev from repeating a triumph from the previous week in Montreal as he defeated the sixth seed in a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 fightback.
Swiatek did the same in the women’s draw as she worked to overcome teen Mirra Andreeva 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.
Photo: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY
Sinner would square off in the semis against third-ranked 2021 champion Alexander Zverev, who got past rain interruptions in the final set to defeat Ben Shelton.
Top seed Sinner took to the court for only his second match of the week after a first-round bye and a walkover on Friday.
Sinner — whose fitness has been compromised in the past few months by a hip niggle, illness and the tonsillitis that forced him to miss the Olympics — stormed back to win the second set and break Rublev to start the third.
He clinched victory in a set where five of the 10 games were breaks of serve.His match point ball was caught by a gust of wind and put out of the reach of his opponent.
“There was a lot of mental strength required today,” Sinner said.
Poland’s Swiatek grabbed a break in the penultimate game of a match lasting more than two-and-a-half hours to finally advance past Andreeva at the US Open tune-up, which concludes today.
Swiatek moved through on her first match point, her opponent driving a return long, and won a 30th match this season at the WTA 1000 level. She stands 53-6 for the season and has won 25 matches on hardcourt.
Swiatek would bid for the finals against Aryna Sabalenka, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Liudmila Samsonova.
On the other side of Ohio, top seeds Latish Chan of Taiwan and Japanese partner Miyu Kato were yesterday to start their women’s doubles campaign at Tennis in the Land in Cleveland against American sisters Carmen and Ivana Corley.
Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and Russian partner Yana Sizikova were to play second seeds Cristina Bucsa of Spain and Yifan Xu of China.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS