Jannik Sinner is cruising through the Vienna Open draw, following up his win over Ben Shelton by beating compatriot Lorenzo Sonego.
Lorenzo Sonego might not be the best player in the world, but he's certainly not a pushover when he plays at his best level. Today wasn't that day, but he played a pretty solid match, giving Sinner some issues at times.
Outside of that, it was Sinner who controlled the match pretty well. He was able to do it so efficiently because of his serve. He served well for the entirety of the match, which is pretty impressive, and it gave him a good starting point in most rallies.
The opening set saw the opposite happen for Sonego, who could barely hit his serve regularly, and it gave his opponent plenty of chances to attack him.
The higher-ranked Italian did that and put Sonego under a lot of pressure, which resulted in him committing far too many errors to remain competitive in the set, and he lost it 2-6.
He played far better in the second set because he served better. Indoor tennis heavily depends on the serve, especially when you have an aggressive returner like Sinner on the other side.
Even with the improved level, Sonego couldn't keep Sinner away from chances, and the younger Italian converted it to take the lead. Sinner also faced a break point, but Sonego couldn't convert as Sinner was just amazing.
He was even better than in his previous match against Ben Shelton, and that's the scary part. He hit 91 % of his first serves in the second set, which paints a pretty clear picture of how tough he was to break today.
He didn't play overly aggressively, though, resulting in only 20 winners overall. It's still a pretty solid win for the Italian, who moves on to the next round. The final score was 6-2, 6-4.
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