Tennis stars Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz demolish Indian Wells opponents

INDIAN WELLS – Reigning Grand Slam champions Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz turned in dominating performances on March 10 to roll into the last 16 of the Indian Wells Open.

The two hottest young guns in the sport showed no mercy in quick-fire victories, with Australian Open champion Sinner overwhelming Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 6-4.

“Almost perfect” Alcaraz, the reigning Wimbledon champion, stepped up his title defence with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Felix Auger-Aliassime.

The world No. 2 Spaniard allowed his Canadian opponent no room to move, notching his eighth win in a row at the event.

“It was almost the perfect match for me,” said Alcaraz, who broke Auger-Aliassime’s serve four times.

“I moved well, played aggressive and had fewer mistakes.”

Sinner was equally ruthless as he attacked Struff, with the Italian winning his 17th match in succession, dating back to his country’s Davis Cup victory in November.

Both needed barely an hour and a quarter to claim their victories.

Sinner fired 27 winners past Struff, whose style gave the third seed a target on court.

“We prepared very well, I tried to learn his moves,” Sinner said.

“I played well and served well under pressure.

“Overall I can be really happy about today. I felt really good on the court.”

Alcaraz won the last five games of the opening set and broke to start the second on his way to repeating his win over Auger-Aliassime from the 2023 quarter-finals.

The second seed finished off victory on his first match point as Auger-Aliassime hit the net with his 23rd unforced error.

It was a welcome show of strength from Alcaraz, who has not won a title since winning his second Grand Slam with a stunning triumph over Novak Djokovic at the All England Club in 2023.

He exited the Australian Open in the quarter-finals, then lost in the semi-finals at Buenos Aires in February, before spraining his ankle and retiring from his opening match in Rio de Janeiro.

“I played at a really high level of tennis, so much higher than the first round,” the Spaniard said.

“Hopefully (I’ll) keep (raising) my level.”

Alcaraz may still be feeling the effects of the ankle ailment, which has left him short of 2024 match play.

“My confidence has gone down a little bit. I’ve been struggling during practice every day,” he admitted.

“I’m trying to keep my confidence as high as I can.”

In other matches, Australian Alex de Minaur, seeded 10th, dominated Dubai finalist Alexander Bublik 7-5, 6-0.

Greek 11th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas eliminated a home-crowd favourite with his 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Frances Tiafoe, who reached the semi-finals in 2023.

“I’m happy with this victory because I had a good start,” former top-10 player Tsitsipas said.

“I maintained that throughout the match.

“Of course he was going to fight back at some point and present a more difficult challenge for me in the second set, but I fought back. I held serve, and I stayed really committed to what I was doing.”

In the women’s draw, Iga Swiatek claimed quick revenge for a January loss as she hammered Linda Noskova 6-4, 6-0 to reach the last 16.

The top seed was defeated by the Czech challenger in an Australian Open third-round upset.

On March 10, world No. 1 Swiatek quickly recovered after going down an early break to the 19-year-old, levelling at 4-4 and sweeping through the remainder of the match.

Swiatek will next face Kazakh Yulia Putintseva, who beat Madison Keys 6-4, 6-1.

The Pole said she learnt from her loss to Noskova in Melbourne.

“It was much smarter to think about how to just play against Linda rather than focusing on my mistakes,” she said. AFP