Reigning Grand Slam champions Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz turned in dominating performances on Sunday to roll into the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open.
The two hottest young racquets in the sport showed no mercy in quick-fire victories, with Australian Open champion Sinner overwhelming Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 6-4.
“Almost perfect” Alcaraz, the reigning Wimbledon champion, stepped up his Indian Wells title defense with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Photo: AFP
The world No. 2 Spaniard allowed his Canadian opponent no room to move, reaching the fourth round with his eighth match win in a row at the event.
“It was almost the perfect match for me,” said Alcaraz, who broke Auger-Aliassime’s serve four times.
“I moved well, played aggressive and had less mistakes,” he said.
Sinner was equally ruthless as he attacked Struff, with the Italian winning his 17th match in succession dating to his country’s Davis Cup victory in November last year.
Sinner fired 27 winners past Struff, whose style gave the third seed a target on court.
“We prepared very well, I tried to learn his moves,” Sinner said. “I played well and served well under pressure... Overall I can be really happy about today, I felt really good on the court.”
In other matches, fifth seed Andrey Rublev was knocked out 6-4, 6-4 by rising Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic.
Alex de Minaur, seeded 10th, dominated Dubai finalist Alexander Bublik 7-5, 6-0. The Australian now plays sixth seed Alexander Zverev, a 7-6 (9/7), 6-3 winner over Tallon Griekspoor.
Greek 11th-seed Stefanos Tsitsipas eliminated a home crowd favorite with his 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Frances Tiafoe, who reached the Californian quarters a year ago.
In the women’s singles, Iga Swiatek claimed quick revenge for a January loss as she hammered Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-0 to reach the fourth round.
The Polish top seed was defeated by the 29th-ranked challenger in an Australian Open third-round upset.
On Sunday, world No. 1 Swiatek quickly recovered after going down an early break to the 19-year-old, leveling at 4-all and sweeping through the remainder of the third-round match.
The Pole said she learned from her loss to Noskova in Melbourne.
“It was much smarter to think about how to just play against Linda rather than focusing on my mistakes,” she said. “I was motivated to just play better and not make the same mistakes, but to improve my game in some aspects.”
In the women’s doubles, world No. 1 pair Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Elise Mertens of Belgium are through to the quarter-finals after beating Indonesia’s Aldila Sutjiadi and Japan’s Miyu Kato 6-3, 7-6 (7/1).
Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Mexico’s Giuliana Olmos lost their round-of-32 match against the US’ Asia Muhammad and Japan’s Ena Shibahara 7-6 (8/6), 6-0.
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