Sinner dominates Popyrin: now the Italia derby with Pellegrino in the round of 16 in Rome

Jannik Sinner dominated the Australian Alexei Popyrin in the round of 16 of the Internazionali di Roma in a match without history where the South Tyrolean player achieved his 25th consecutive victory in a Masters 1000. Jannik thus advances to the round of 16 of the tournament, where he had reached the final with Carlos Alcaraz last year. Sinner, in his thirteenth consecutive victory on clay, will take on Italian Andrea Pellegrino, who beat American Frances Tiafoe in the round of 16. The world number 1 joins Novak Djokovic as the player to have won the first 25 ATP Masters 1000 matches of the season, after the Serb reached this milestone in 2011 (31) and 2015 (25).

Sinner's start was excellent right from the start, when Popyrin immediately conceded the break to the South Tyrolean champion, only finding the court on one occasion in the game. Sinner immediately took advantage of his opponent's drop in performance to take the initiative in the exchange and move ahead in the score. After holding the serve without conceding any heavy points, the San Candido player got another break point in the third game, but Popyrin cancelled the threat by closing the game at the net.

Popyrin tried to change his game and command the exchange, coming to the net, but Sinner in the fourth game maintained his solidity on serve. The Italia player got another break point in the fifth game and this time the Australian player was unable to resist the tension and with a double fault he let Sinner escape with 4-1 and serve in his favour. Sinner easily held his subsequent service game, conceded his service game to Popyrin, and closed out the first set 6-2 in his turn, aided also by new balls and errors by Popyrin.

The Australian immediately started the second set in a foul manner, forced to chase at 0-30 on his own service turn, and let Sinner slip away 1-0, who then easily held his own serve. Popyrin was unconvinced, conceding three more break points, saving two of them, but he put the third on tape and gave another service game to the Italia champion, who went 3-0 up. The next game was won by Sinner without major problems and he scored his fourth and fifth ace of the match. The Italian champion took a 4-0 lead, broke again in the next game, leaving only a 15 to his opponent, and closed the second set on the first match point of the three available, with a crushing 6-0, which opened the door to the round of 16 of the Internazionali d'Italia.