Jannik Sinner was able to avenge his recent loss to Andrey Rublev, beating him in three sets at the 2024 Cincinnati Open.
The two make for an interesting matchup because they play similar tennis. Both are aggressive baseliners, but there are some key differences. The Italian player generally seems to have more power in his shots, or he puts more power in his shots than his opponent does.
The Russian can be blown off the court hitting-wise, which is not true for Sinner. Very few players beat him with hitting only. Sinner also seems to have a 'better' serve, but that's highly debatable.
It mostly comes down to Rublev being very streaky both with the serve and hitting. His best hitting is good enough to be better than Sinner's, but he doesn't find his best hitting often.
Even in the last match they played last week, Rublev didn't have his best hitting. He outplayed Sinner, but the Italian also dealt with a leg injury that certainly hampered him.
He was much better than Rublev in that second set, which indicated an opening for him to win the match. He didn't, so moving to Cincinnati, the Italian had a lot of ground to make up for.
He played well in his first matches in Cincinnati and didn't seem to have any issues with his leg. Sinner has generally had the upper hand in the matchup lately, so these troubles for him against Rublev were quite worrying.
This match, in particular, was quite strange, and it was mostly because of very windy weather that significantly impacted the play. Sinner wasn't hitting as cleanly as he could or even on the level of his opponent.
They were about equal in terms of winners, but the Italian made more errors. Neither served that well, and Sinner had tremendous problems on his second serve. Rublev was just very aggressive, but it worked out well for him in windy conditions.
The World No. 1 also handled the crucial moments much worse. After losing his serve early, he broke back at 5-3 when Rublev tried to serve out the set. That was a perfect chance for him to turn around the set, as the momentum was on his side.
However, he lost his serve and the set 4-6. In the second set, he broke his opponent's serve early to lead 1-0 but then lost his serve immediately in the next game to hand Rublev the momentum back.
Serving poorly really cost him in the early goings of the match. Later on, it was mostly him missing his chances. Sinner had several chances to break in the second set, but he didn't.
Rublev was quite lucky in that regard but also unlucky when he missed out on break chances up 4-3 in the second set. By the time it was 5-5 in the second set, Sinner had already wasted seven break points in that set, and that was a problem.
He could finally use the ninth opportunity to take a 6-5 lead and win the second set 7-5. Sinner then continued playing well, taking an early break in the second set.
Sinner was then able to break again to take over the match completely, which was impressive considering he was down 3-4 and 15-40 on his serve only a few minutes earlier.
The World No. 1 player was able to complete the comeback win by winning the match 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 to reach the semi-finals of the 2024 Cincinnati Open.
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