Sinner survives Jarry scare in Beijing

pDefending champion a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jannik-sinner/s0ag/overview'Jannik Sinner/a did not have things all his own way on his return to the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/beijing/747/overview'China Open/a on Thursday, but he found a way to move past a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/nicolas-jarry/j551/overview'Nicolas Jarry/a and earn his 12th consecutive win./p

pThe Italian was overpowered by the big-hitting Chilean in the first set. However, the top seed would not be denied, raising his consistency, intensity and level to record a 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 first-round victory in Beijing./p

p"He played good tennis," said Sinner, who is 56-5 on the season. "In the first set I was struggling to return his serve and he broke me. I just tried to stay there mentally. The first round at any tournament is never easy and playing against him is very tough. But I am happy about the performance and how I ended the match."/p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Up and Running ????br /br /Defending champion a href="https://twitter.com/janniksin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@janniksin/a comes from a set down to defeat Jarry 4-6 6-3 6-1 in Beijing!a href="https://twitter.com/ChinaOpen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@ChinaOpen/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChinaOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#ChinaOpen/a a href="https://t.co/2kEi7fWnjK"pic.twitter.com/2kEi7fWnjK/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1839244779101508014?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"September 26, 2024/a/blockquote script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

pSinner committed 11 unforced errors and produced a number of stunning baseline passes to blunt the constant net approaches from Jarry, who upset then-World No. 2 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a for the biggest win of his career in Buenos Aires in February./p

p"The first-serve was good, the second I have to improve a little," said Sinner, who won 82 per cent (37/45) of his first-serve points according to Infosys ATP Stats. "He was returning aggressively, so it is not easy. From after a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a we tried to work very hard, change a few things but happy with my process."/p

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pLast year, Sinner soared to the title at the ATP 500 event in Beijing. His run in the Chinese capital was a key major step in the 23-year-old becoming the first Italian No. 1 in the history of PIF ATP Rankings (since 1973)./p

pSinner has won a Tour-leading seven trophies, including majors at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/australian-open/580/overview'Australian Open/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a, since his title run in Beijing in 2023. Competing for the first time since he won the trophy in New York earlier this month, Sinner will next play lucky loser a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roman-safiullin/sx50/overview'Roman Safiullin/a or former World No. 3 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/stan-wawrinka/w367/overview'Stan Wawrinka/a./p

pThe top seed, who levelled his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Jarry at 1-1 following his one-hour, 55-minute win, qualified for the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a last month. The Italian will be hoping to go one step better at the prestigious year-end event in November, having lost in the title match to a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a last season./p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p