Sinner wins to set up de Minaur’s ‘mission impossible’
Ian Chadband |
After achieving mission improbable, Alex de Minaur must now pull off what shapes as his mission impossible at the ATP Finals in Turin.
As expected in front of his home fans, defending champ Jannik Sinner breezed to yet another indoor victory in his final group match on Friday, overcoming the power serving of Ben Shelton to win 6-3 7-6 (7-3) and set up a semi-final with the Australian No.1 at the Inalpi Arena.
For de Minaur, that must feel the most forlorn of quests. In a dozen attempts stretching back six long years, he’s never been able to beat the world no.2.
Indeed, he’s only taken two sets off him in all those encounters in what’s proved one of the most one-sided rivalries at the top level of the men’s game.
And after winning his 29th successive match on indoor hard courts, the young Italian great sounded as if he was not about to take the foot off the gas in Saturday’s last-four encounter.
That’s because he senses de Minaur will feel he has nothing to lose and can throw caution to the wind after his near-miraculous transformation over the last few days.
On Tuesday, de Minaur had been the picture of dejection after feeling he’d thrown away a victory against Lorenzo Musetti when in a winning position, saying that, mentally, these sort of losses were “killing” him and were in danger of eating him alive.
Yet on Thursday, his countenance had changed to sheer ecstasy after his straight-sets win over Taylor Fritz, arguably the best and most important of his career, resurrected his hopes and, combined with Carlos Alcaraz’s win over Musetti, earned him a wholly unexpected semi-final spot.
“First, I’m very happy for Alex, because when you have the type of losses he had against Lorenzo, it’s very tough,” reflected Sinner after his match.
“But props to him to come back with such an incredible performance, one of the best matches I’ve seen him play, against Taylor.
“So I have to be very careful because he doesn’t have a lot to lose. I have a lot to lose – so it’s going to be very difficult.
“But I’m very happy to be in the semis and, hopefully, I can show some good tennis and we can hope for a couple of great semis.”
The other semi-final will be between Alcaraz and the victor of Friday’s winner-takes-all group match between Alexander Zverev and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
But though Alcaraz, who had earlier collected his end-of-year world No.1 trophy on Friday, looks in prime form too, Sinner will take some stopping on this form.
“When you win all three round-robin matches, you have to play some very high-level tennis, some great tennis, which I’ve done,” he said.
“It was a truly special day playing in front of the home crowd, and against Ben it’s always a tough challenge, you have to take the little chances you have against his huge serve.”
AAP
