New York (AFP)
World number one Jannik Sinner of Italy reached the third round of the US Open, the last of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, with an easy win over American Alex Mikkelsen 6-4, 6-0, 6-2.
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland crushed Japan’s Ina Shibahara 6-0, 6-1 in just 65 minutes to join the ranks of those who qualified for the third round.
It is the 50th win for Sinner, 23, this year, and the 30th on hard courts, qualifying for the third round in New York for the fourth year in a row.
Sinner needed an hour and 39 minutes to defeat the world’s 49th ranked player, hitting 28 winners and breaking his opponent’s serve 8 times.
The Italian will face Australian wildcard Christopher O’Connell in the third round, seeking to reach the semi-finals. O’Connell booked his place in the third round by defeating Italian qualifier Mattia Bellucci 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
“I’m very happy, he’s a very tough opponent, we played each other in Cincinnati a week ago, I knew what to expect, he knew what to expect a little bit,” said Sinner, who beat Mikkelsen in the second round of the Cincinnati Masters 1000 two weeks ago.
Sinner won his fifth title of the year in Cincinnati, a day after his coronation, it was revealed that Sinner had escaped a ban despite two positive tests for a performance-enhancing substance in March, with authorities accepting his explanation that the result was the result of unintentional contamination.
Success was not for the Polish Hubert Hurkacz, ranked seventh in the world, who left the second round after losing to the Australian Jordan Thompson, ranked 32nd, with a score of 6-7, 1-6, and 5-7.
Hurkacz withdrew from the second round at Wimbledon against Frenchman Arthur Fiss due to a foot injury.
The Pole, who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals in 2021, has never gone beyond the second round at Flushing Meadows.
Thompson, who previously reached the round of 16 at the US Open in 2020, will face in the third round Italian Matteo Arnaldi, who defeated Russian Roman Safiulin 6-2, 6-4, 6-4.
Czech Tomas Machak defeated American Sebastian Korda, 16th seed, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4.
In the women’s section, Poland’s Swiatek, the 2022 champion, crushed Japan’s Shibahara, ranked 217th, to advance to the third round.
The 23-year-old Pole is seeking to add a second title in New York to her four titles at Roland Garros, noting that she has never lost to a player ranked outside the top 100 at a Grand Slam, to improve her record to 20-0.
She dominated the first seven games, before Shibahara won her serve to level the score at 1-1 in the second set, and held her nerve to save three break points in 13 minutes in what was the only game she won.
In contrast, Italian Jasmine Paolini, ranked fifth in the world, benefited from the withdrawal of Czech Karolina Pliskova, ranked 44, after only three points in the first set, due to an injury to her left foot, to reach the third round.
Pliskova, who reached the final at Flushing Meadows in 2016, felt pain, stopped the match and called a medical timeout, before announcing her withdrawal and limping off Louis Armstrong Stadium.
“I hope she recovers quickly, because it’s sad to see her leave the court like this, we didn’t play a real match,” Paolini said of her opponent.
“This is not good for tennis, I just hope she recovers and we see her back on the courts soon,” she continued.
Paolini, who lost the Roland Garros and Wimbledon finals this year, will play against Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, 32, who defeated China’s Wang Xinyu 6-1, 7-6.
Russian Anna Kalinskaya, ranked 15th, defeated Hungarian Anna Bondar 6-2, 6-4, and her compatriot Diana Schnyder, ranked 18th, defeated Danish Clara Tauson 6-4, 6-4.
Kazakhstan’s fourth seed Elena Rybakina, who was crowned Wimbledon champion in 2022, withdrew before her second-round match against Frenchwoman Jessica Bonci (134), without specifying the reason for the withdrawal.
Rybakina revealed days before the tournament that she had ended a five-year partnership with her coach Stefano Vukov, although she closed the door on questions about the move in a press conference after her first-round win over Australian Destanie Aiava.
Rybakina also withdrew from the Paris Olympics, two weeks after losing to Czech Barbora Krejcikova in the Wimbledon semi-finals.
The Kazakh leads the WTA in aces this season with 332, and has won titles in Stuttgart, Brisbane and Abu Dhabi.
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