World number two Jannik Sinner launched his Shanghai Masters title defence in fine form on Saturday, breezing past Germany’s Daniel Altmaier 6-3, 6-3.<\/p>\n
Sinner, fresh from winning the China Open, broke early in both sets to take control and ease himself comfortably into the third round.<\/p>\n
The 49th-ranked Altmaier’s best chance came in the eighth game of the first set, but he failed to convert a breakpoint twice, allowing the Italian to hold with an ace.<\/p>\n
The second set provided even less opportunity to seriously bother the 24-year-old Wimbledon champion, but afterwards Sinner said it hadn’t been easy.<\/p>\n
“It’s very tough… I had not a lot of time to adjust for here, it’s very different conditions (to Beijing),” said Sinner.<\/p>\n
Sinner’s path to retaining the title this year has been made easier by the withdrawal of great rival Carlos Alcaraz, who dropped out last-minute to rest.<\/p>\n
The Italian’s next match is on Sunday against the Netherlands’ Tallon Griekspoor.<\/p>\n
Four-time Shanghai champion Novak Djokovic will take to the court again on Sunday as well, facing Germany’s 150th-ranked Yannick Hanfmann.<\/p>\n
World number three Alexander Zverev defied a foot problem to book his place in the third round, beating France’s Valentin Royer 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n
The German had a blistering start, breaking Royer in the first game and then hitting three aces to easily hold the second.<\/p>\n
The play settled as the Frenchman found his feet, but a crucial stumble saw him miss a break point in the eighth game, and Zverev took the set.<\/p>\n
Both players missed chances to break in the second, wowing the crowd with multiple tense rallies.<\/p>\n
Zverev finally broke in the ninth game then held the last game to win, despite having to take a medical break after limping off court.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a nice feeling to finish a match like that,” Zverev said afterwards, wincing.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy to be through in two sets and I’ll keep fighting through.”<\/p>\n
World number seven Alex de Minaur is through to the next round after comfortably dispatching Argentina’s Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n
Russia’s Andrey Rublev, ranked 14th in the world, was upset by qualifier Yoshihito Nishioka 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.<\/p>\n
But compatriot Daniil Medvedev dominated qualifier Dalibor Svrcina to advance 6-1, 6-1.<\/p>\n
reb\/pst<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
World number two Jannik Sinner launched his Shanghai Masters title defence in fine form on Saturday, breezing past Germany’s Daniel Altmaier 6-3, 6-3. Sinner, fresh from winning the China Open, broke early in both sets to take control and ease himself comfortably into the third round. The 49th-ranked Altmaier’s best chance came in the eighth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[1491,1008,656],"class_list":["post-12891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-atp-2","tag-chn-2","tag-tennis-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}