Jannik Sinner, despite a number of unfortunate incidents, managed to gather his focus and beat an ever-spirited Gabriel Diallo of Canada 6-2, 7-6(6).
It was an odd Monday at the ATP and WTA Cincinnati Open where in the second game the venue lost power and in the next two games, the players had to be taken off the court due to a malfunction in the electronic line-calling and an alarm going off.
Sinner got a bit of a scare late in the first set as he had to save set point in the tiebreak before he wrapped up the match with an ace. In the end, he extended his hard-court winning streak to 23 matches with the win.“It was an extremely tough day,” said Sinner. “I absolutely need this kind of fight before the Grand Slam.
”Moreover, US No. 4 seed Taylor Fritz survived a scare from Lorenzo Sonego, taking it 7-6(4), 7-5, while Frances Tiafoe dispatched Ugo Humbert 6-4, 6-4 to face Holger Rune, who knocked out Alex Michelsen 7-6(4), 6-3.
With a good comeback, Adrian Mannarino overtook Tommy Paul 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. The match between Felix Auger-Aliassime and Arthur Rinderknech was stopped as the latter suffered due to heat and retired, thus, Felix gave the walkover to the next round.
On the women’s side, it was quite a fight between world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and Britain’s Emma Raducanu, with the Belarusian prevailing 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(5) after three hours of battling. Their match was a gauntlet, with a 25-minute game and 13 deuces in the final set. Sabalenka finished with two aces in a row and earned her 49th win this season.
Three-time winner Madison Keys, without any trouble, moved over Aoi Ito 6-4, 6-0, and top fifteen Elena Rybakina got the better of Elise Mertens with a comeback 4-6, 6-3, 7-5. Two-time Russian Open champion Anna Kalinskaya beat the fifth seed Amanda Anisimova 7-5, 6-4, and Ekaterina Alexandrova, Sorana Cirstea, and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro won their
