NEW YORK —
World No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy used an aggressive style of constant attacks on the net to advance to the US Open semifinals for the first time, beating Russian Daniil Medvedev, who won the event in 2021, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 on Wednesday.
Sinner, who at 23 years old became the favourite to win the title after Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz were eliminated in the first week of the tournament, is the only tennis player with a Grand Slam trophy on his resume who is still in the running in New York.
He won his first major title in January, when he defeated Medvedev in five sets after losing the first two, to win the Australian Open.
The scores reflected what happened in a match in which the rivals took turns dominating at the beginning. First Sinner was superior. Then, he gave the initiative to Medvedev.
The Italian regained the lead in the third. And in the fourth, which was 3-3, Sinner saved a pair of breaks, before securing his own break to take a 5-3 lead.
“We know each other pretty well. We knew it was going to be a physical match,” said Sinner, who lost to Medvedev in five sets at Wimbledon in July. “The first two sets were strange because whoever got the first break started to dominate.”
The key was that Sinner won the point on 28 of his 33 trips to the net, including 9 of 11 on serve-and-volley actions.
“We tried to work really hard on that aspect of the game,” Sinner said. “I just tried to bring some variation to the game.”
Sinner was cleared of a doping charge less than a week before the US Open after testing positive twice for traces of an anabolic steroid in March. On Friday, he will face Britain’s Jack Draper (25th) for a ticket to the final.
The other semifinal of the day will be between Taylof Fritz (12th) and Frances Tiafoe (20th). It will be the first duel between Americans at this stage of a major in 19 years.
In the women’s semi-finals, scheduled for Thursday evening, Jessica Pegula will face Karolina Muchova, while Aryna Sabalenka will play Emma Navarro.
Draper, 22, reached his first Grand Slam semi-final — and became the first Briton to go that far at the US Open since Andy Murray in 2012 — by beating Australian Alex de Minaur 6-3, 7-5, 6-2.
Draper has won all 15 sets he has played so far. But things could get complicated against Sinner.
“It’s not like an overnight thing for me. I’ve believed for a long time that I’m putting in the work and doing the right things. I knew my time would come,” said Draper, who requested a kinesiologist’s taping of his right thigh after feeling discomfort toward the end of the first set. “I don’t know when it will be, but hopefully from this I can do a lot of amazing things. I’m very proud of myself.”
