Sinner “answers” to Alcaraz: he wins easily against Taro Daniel and will now challenge Etcheverry in a Davis appetizer. Historic Errani and Paolini: qualified for the WTA Doubles Finals
And who said that the rush who can only be a bad advisor. Jannik Sinner he completely overturned the concept: a Shanghai, in the debut of the penultimate Masters 1000 of the season, the native of San Candido eliminated the Japanese Taro Daniel in just under an hour (6-1 6-3), in fact responding in kind to Carlos Alcaraz who a few minutes earlier had done the same with the favorite of the house Shang Juncheng (doubles 6-2).
First set without history: 22 minutes of dominance
The back-and-forth surprised no one: Jannik and Carlitos have clear ideasand maybe up that plane taken together from Beijing they will also have devised a plan to find themselves faced with Shanghai (in this case, however, it could happen in the semifinals). In the meantime they set off again with momentum, almost without paying any dues to the effort.
Sinner against Daniel entered the autopilot: he had already beaten him almost three years ago in Australia in four sets in the only previous match, this time however he decided to impose his own law without giving the Japanese the opportunity to try even just one reply.
The first set was a manifesto of this: just 22′ to settle the matterwith five consecutive games won by the Italian who immediately converted the first break point available in the fourth game (straight into the Japanese net) and then left the misery of one point to the rival in the next three gamesbreaking him a second time in the sixth (at zero). An excessively obvious superiority, which perhaps not even the numbers (25 points against 8) can fully explain.
Taro doesn’t give up, but Sinner doesn’t concede anything
Daniel he looks a lot like a beaten boxer, but at least he tries to raise his head at the start of the second set, when he holds the serve (albeit with advantages) finding “grazia” from the oversized obverse with which Sinner wastes the first break point of the partial. The match, however, is marked because in the service shifts of Jannik you really play with the lantern, with the aces falling like rose petals.
In the third game he arrives yet another break of the day after Daniel he was good at canceling the first ball to make it 2-1 with a good first, but the second ends up in the corridor and paves the way towards an epilogue that couldn’t be more natural. Although at least in the next game Sinner must push for advantages (a rarity) to confirm the break, among other things benefiting from the three aces with which he avoids capitulation.
Daniel’s reaction and a more “training” match
The Japanese understand that the end is near: in the fifth game he goes up 40-15 but gets caught again (on 40 all is the best rally of the matchwith the fabulous Italian in defense and then with the cross-court forehand), forced to cancel four balls of the 4-1, but saving himself most of the time with the first.
In the end he finds a way to extend the match without giving up the service anymoreat least keeping a little more on the gridiron Sinner, who closed the match with 12 aces, 78% of first serves and 84% of points won with first serves. In short, we have seen worse debuts. With this they do 60 victories out of 66 races held in 2024: for the 61st, appointment against the Argentine Tomas Etcheverry, already beaten in the only previous one in Australia in 2023, in a real one Davis Cup antipasto.
Errani and Paolini, double blow: final in Beijing and WTA Finals
The Italian morning had opened with the victory for Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in the doubles semi-final of the WTA 1000 in Beijinggood both for winning the fifth final of the season, but above all for guaranteeing the arithmetic certainty of being present at WTA Finals di Riyadhscheduled for early November.
No laughing matter victory for the Olympic champions, who defeated the resistance of the Americans Sofia Kenin and Bethania Mattek-Sands with a score of 6-3 1-6 10-4. The Italians were especially good at putting things right in the match match tiebreak (5 points in a row from 5-4 in their favor) after the second set had seen them a little disunited, suffering from the aggressiveness of the American pair, with whom they had also lost in the only previous match played last March in Miami.
Errani and Paolini they are the second Italian couple in history to qualify for the WTA Finals: they always succeeded 10 years ago Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci. And in the final they could face a sort of derby, since Elisabetta Cocciarettoin tandem con Ludmila Samsonova, will be engaged in the late morning against the Russian Veronika Kudermetova and Chinese Chan Hao-Chin in the other semi-final.
