Jannik Sinner reached his first Australian Open semi-final in an impressive straight-sets win over Andrey Rublev in another late finish ending close to 01:30 local time.
In a commanding performance on the Rod Laver Arena, the Italian 4th seed served 10 aces and saved eight breakpoints in a 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory and now faces perhaps the toughest test in tennis when he takes on defending champion Novak Djokovic – who has 33 straight wins at the tournament – in two days time.
After dropping the opening set, Rublev raised his levels in the second by hitting winners from both flanks and constantly putting Sinner under pressure. Despite this, he was still unable to take advantage of any breakpoints which came his way and showed his frustrations by hitting himself with his racket combined with his familiar rants. To his credit however, he forced a tie-break and carved up a huge 5-1 lead and was about to level the match at a set-all.
Sinner though, had other ideas and hit a thunderous crosscourt winner as he reeled off six points in a row to take a commanding two sets to love lead. He thanked the crowd after his victory for their support and staying late and when asked how he escaped from the 5-1 deficit, he replied:
“I don’t know! At 5-1 we changed ends and it was a little windy so I knew I had a little advantage and I tried to hold serve for 5-2, and somehow breaking him once but I did it twice and then I was 5-4 on serve. This is all very tight. Actually, these moments are why I want to play and what I practice for. I’m really excited when we have these pressure points on. I’m just trying to stay aggressive and it went my way today so I’m really happy.”
Rublev has now failed to progress past the quarter finals from ten attempts in a Grand Slam – a very worrying statistic for a player ranked in the top five in the world – and must surely look to add variety to his game and improve his second serve as he looks to overcome his mental demons.
The 22-year-old Italian, who won 76% of points on his first serve as well as nine of eleven net points, felt some discomfort in his abdominal during the third set thankfully was not too serious and didn’t affect his serve speeds. He now has 48 hours to rest and plot a way past Djokovic who came through a tough four set battle with American Taylor Fritz in the day session.
“I’m really lucky to face Novak again in the biggest tournament in world. I’m happy to play here. The only thing I can control is that I can fight for every ball, then we can see what the outcome will be.”
