Master 1000 Miami: Sinner-Ruusuvuori 6-3 6-1, Jannik in the semifinals

It’s okay that tennis is the devil’s sport and that every match is a story in itself, but it couldn’t have been Emil Ruusuvuori (n.54 in the world) who put this Jannik Sinner in difficulty. 2022, when the Finn had three match points against the blue in Miami, is light years away, and the 21-year-old from South Tyrol proved it well, to his opponent. The gap between the two in these twelve months has widened dramatically, all in favor of the Italian, which makes us understand even more the results of his hard work.

Difference

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And so Jannik hits the second semifinal in a 1000 in two weeks, the third of his career, two of which in Florida. Sinner also becomes the Italian with the most semifinals in the Masters 1000, tied with Fabio Fognini. It will hardly be the last, indeed we would tend to exclude it, given the exponential growth of Jannik in this 2023: 20 games won with 4 defeats, fifth place in the Race with Tsitsipas just a handful of points away, more generally a strength and a certainty which now frighten their opponents. It can be said without the possibility of contradiction that, at this moment, Sinner’s strongest players are very, very few, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Perhaps. And the beauty is that against Ruusuvuori, easily beaten in two sets (6-3 6-1 the score in one hour and 15 minutes), it was not the best version of Sinner, especially in the very first games, not the one seen for example against Rublev, but Jannik probably understood that there was no need to bring out all the silverware, and he did what top-level players do, i.e. put his foot on the accelerator just to give that long stretch needed to close basically the game. The “tap” on the pedal Sinner gave it 2-2 in the first set, when after saving (with an ace) a break point granted to Ruusuvuori the previous game, Jannik broke the delay, breaking his opponent’s serve, then closing the set comfortably (with a second break) despite a not very high percentage of first balls (53%, percentage then rising to 57% in the second, but 92% of points won when he put the ball in the field) and with the usual swing double faults-ace that happens to him from time to time. Nothing alarming, however, certainly not in a match like this, so much so that in the second set, when the first entered more easily, he conceded only two points to his opponent on his serve.

And now…

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Before the rain interrupted the game, Sinner had already gone ahead 2-0 in the second, by virtue of four consecutive games won. When the match restarted, after more than two hours and ten minutes, the match went off smooth as oil, with Sinner too on the ball and too safe to be worried by Ruusuvuori, who simply had no weapons available to sustain that pace of play. To score points, the Finn had to play over the pace, which he only succeeded in certain points, nothing that could really worry Sinner, who at 4-1 despite the opponent’s resistance got the double break, then closing the set and the match 6-1 . Jannik is the seventh player to reach the semifinals in the American Doubles in the same season before turning 22 after Agassi (1990), Courier (1991), Djokovic (2007), Murray (2007, 2009), Nadal (2008) and Alcaraz ( 2022). Now Sinner awaits the winner of the other quarter-final, the one between Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz, both met in Indian Wells, where he beat the American and lost against the Spaniard, with the latter starting without a doubt the favorite against the Californian .