Carlos Alcaraz was tipped to make the final at the China Open over Jannik Sinner, but that didn't happen as the Italian bested him.
Sinner is proving to be a rather problematic matchup for Alcaraz having beaten him a few times now. As we discussed in our preview, this one had Alcaraz written all over it especially when we compared how they fared this week.
Sinner dealing with some physical problems yesterday tipped the scale further on Alcaraz's side but none of that ultimately mattered. The match did begin better for Alcaraz who was locked in and far more precise than Sinner who is known as a very streaky player.
The Italian might just be the streakiest player on Tour because he travelled quite a distance in this one. From a rather shaky start to basically smashing Alcaraz from the baseline is quite an achievement. Alcaraz was up 2-0 after the first two games but Sinner battled back to 2-2.
The Spaniard took another break but gave it back immediately as Sinner put a lot of pressure on him with his deep returns. The match calmed down a little bit as we ended up in a tiebreak, which went Sinner's way. He simply outplayed the Spaniard from the baseline with his superb shot-making.
Indeed, the Italian can hit some things that leave you speechless, and there were a few of those moments in that one. He opened the second set with an early break and took a 2-0 despite Alcaraz trying everything to make it more interesting.
He had a break point in consecutive games but didn't use any of his five. The crucial game was at 2-1 for Sinner when he held from 0-40 to take a 3-1 lead. He would add another break after that and cruise from there. The final score was 7-6(2) 6-1 for the Italian, who has now bested Alcaraz in their last two matches.
He advances to the final where he'll play Daniil Medvedev. The Russian beat Alexander Zverev earlier there.
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