BEIJING, 2 Oct: Carlos Alcaraz won seven straight points in the decisive tiebreaker to beat top-ranked Jannik Sinner 6-7 (6), 6-4, 7-6 (3) and win the China Open on Wednesday, extending his recent mastery over his biggest rival \u2014 who is dealing with an ongoing doping case.
\nThe third-ranked Alcaraz has now won all three of his meetings with Sinner this year, having also come out on top in semifinals at Indian Wells and the French Open.
\nAlcaraz also ended Sinner\u2019s winning streak at 14 matches and denied the Italian three straight titles after trophies in Cincinnati and at the U.S. Open.
\nSinner, who was the defending champion in Beijing, had to refocus after the World Anti-Doping Agency announced on Saturday that it was appealing a decision to clear him of wrongdoing following two positive steroid tests.
\nAlcaraz wasted a 5-2 lead in the first set and also let Sinner get back in the third after leading 4-2 before eventually edging it out after also falling behind 3-0 in the final-set tiebreaker.
\nAlcaraz changed both of his shoes after falling behind 2-0 in the third-set tiebreaker. He then lost one more point before going on a seven-point run that displayed why he\u2019s a threat anywhere on the court. There were inside-out forehand winners \u2014 including one on his first match point \u2014 a difficult volleyed approach shot, and a drop shot, too.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not going to lie: 3-0 down, two mini-breaks for him, so I didn\u2019t lose hope but I thought, \u2018OK, I have to give everything that I have just to try to give me the opportunity to be close,\u2019\u201d Alcaraz said. \u201cI played great points just to make the 3-3 and after that I just think to go for it. If I lose it, at least I went for it.\u201d
\nAlcaraz produced 55 winners to Sinner\u2019s 30 but also had 52 unforced errors to his opponent\u2019s 31 \u2014 a sign of their contrasting styles: Alcaraz\u2019s attacking game vs. Sinner\u2019s steady baseline approach.
\nThe match \u2014 which was played in cool conditions with the retractable roof open \u2014 lasted 3 hours, 21 minutes to make it the longest contest in tournament history (since 2004).
\nSinner and Alcaraz have accounted for all four Grand Slam titles this year between them \u2014 evenly split at two each: Sinner won the Australian Open and the U.S. Open while Alcaraz won the French Open and Wimbledon.
\nAlcaraz improved to 6-4 in his career against Sinner after their 10th meeting in what has become tennis\u2019 top rivalry following the 60 matches between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
\n\u201cI respect you a lot as a player but even more as a person,\u201d Alcaraz told Sinner during the trophy ceremony.
\nSinner congratulated Alcaraz for an \u201camazing\u201d job.
\n\u201cHopefully we can still play a couple of more times in the future, which I\u2019m quite sure,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cIt\u2019s always a big pleasure to share the court with you.\u201d
\nWADA is seeking a ban of one to two years for Sinner in a case that might not be resolved before Sinner begins the defense of his Australian Open title in January.
\nSinner tested positive twice for an anabolic steroid in March but was not banned in a decision by an indepen-dent tribunal announced by the International Tennis Integrity Agency in August because the ITIA determined he was not to blame.
\nSinner\u2019s accepted expla-nation was that the banned performance-enhancer entered his system uninten-tionally through a massage from his physiotherapist, who had used a spray containing the steroid to treat his own cut finger.
\nSinner thanked his team and his family for their support.
\n\u201cToday we fell short but it was a great battle again and in a couple of days there\u2019s again a new opportunity,\u201d Sinner said, looking ahead to his next event in Shanghai.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka extends winning streak to 15 matches
\nSecond-ranked Aryna Sabalenka matched her career-best of 15 straight wins after beating Madison Keys 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the quarterfinals of the women\u2019s tournament in Beijing.
\nThe three-time Grand Slam winner started her streak with a title at Cincinnati in August and continued with a run to the championship at the U.S. Open last month. She also won the Australian Open earlier in the year. Her previous streak of 15 was achieved across the 2020-21 seasons.
\n\u201cWhen you\u2019re able to sacrifice a lot and you\u2019re able to work hard and you\u2019re able to get these wins, that\u2019s the best feeling,\u201d Sabalenka said.
\nThe Belarusian has won 30 of 31 sets played during her current streak, dropping only one set to Ekaterina Alexandrova in the third round of the U.S. Open.
\nThat form guide quickly played out again as Sabalenka broke the No. 24-ranked Keys in the third game of the first set and then dominated on serve throughout an efficient 65-minute outing, which improved her head-to-head record against the American to 4-1.
\nSabalenka will play Karolina Muchova in the quarterfinals after the Czech player routed Cristina Bucsa 6-2, 6-0.
\nParis Olympics gold medalist Zheng Qinwen played a night match against Amanda Anisi-mova. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING, 2 Oct: Carlos Alcaraz won seven straight points in the decisive tiebreaker to beat top-ranked Jannik Sinner 6-7 (6), 6-4, 7-6 (3) and win the China Open on Wednesday, extending his recent mastery over his biggest rival \u2014 who is dealing with an ongoing doping case. The third-ranked Alcaraz has now won all three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-249735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}