Jannik Sinner, 19 years old and world No. 19, continues to amaze in the tournament and is the first semifinalist of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell-68º Conde de Godó Trophy after beating in the quarter round a Andrey Rublev (7th) by 6-2 and 7-6 (6) in 1h.35 ‘.
The Italian will seek a place in the final on Saturday against the winner of the match between the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (5th) and the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (20th), two other fantastic members of the ‘Next Gen’ who will have to take over from the ‘Big Three’ formed by Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
After beating Egor Gerasimov and Roberto Bautista in two sets, Sinner also needed only two sets to eliminate Rublev, the tennis player with the most wins of the year (26-6) who came with the spark of winning last week at Rafa Nadal before falling to Tsitsipas in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters 1,000.
However, Jannik also showed that he is going through an excellent moment of play, as he taught by getting into the final of the Masters 1.000 de Miami, where Hubert Hurkacz stopped him, and demanding Novak Djokovic an excellent version before giving up in the 2nd round of Monte Carlo.
Sinner was Godó’s youngest quarter-finalist since Nadal won the first of his 11 titles in 2005 at the age of 18 and, obviously, that statistic remains in effect in the semifinals.
The Italian authoritatively scored the first set (6-2) by breaking Rublev’s serve twice, in the third and seventh games. Interestingly, in the two games prior to those ‘breaks’ Sinner had lifted three breaking points from the Russian, the first sign of his success in the delicate moments of the clash.
Sinner also got the first break of the second set (4-3), but from then on he felt his nerves, made more mistakes and was about to even lose the set. Rublev then broke his serve (4-4) and forced the tiebreak, marked by the continuous minibreaks between the two tennis players.
Jannik took the lead in the tiebreaker 4-1 and served, but the Russian rallied and had a set ball at 5-6. Sinner, always brave, neutralized that ‘set-ball’ against with a winning forehand and he did then take advantage of his first match point, in a big way also, with an ace for 6-2 and 7-6 (6) definitive .
The Godó has a first semi-finalist of many carats whose ceiling right now is not guessed given the unbridled evolution that Sinner has been in recent months.
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