June 08, (THEWILL)- When the fast-rising Italian tennis youngster Jannik Sinner stormed ahead of the clay King Rafael Nadal in their French Open fourth-round clash in Paris, it appeared he came prepared to challenge Nadal’s tight grip on the surface of his genius. He looked the part too, playing with undeniable determination that saw him come out of the blocks firing.
Sinner did what everyone who met Nadal on clay had at the top of their minds to do: he threw everything at the Spaniard in the opening set. And, for the initial stage of that set, the execution of Sinner’s strategy resulted in granting him an early lead because, on two occasions, he incredibly broke Nadal’s serve with sensational tennis.
But Nadal did not become king of the Roland Garros surface by mistake nor was he a formidable opponent to contend against that his reputation proclaimed ahead of him. He went all out and gave the 19-year-old a free masterclass in comeback tennis at the highest level.
The Spaniard won the crucial serves with that guttural grunt of his powering every fling of his arm to recover from a third break of serves in the very strongly combatted first set to catch 5-5 with Sinner before leaving him in the dust to take the first set.
It was a fiery Nadal that returned for the second set because the 13-time French Open champion floored the accelerator through the remainder of the match. So masterful it was that Nadal only dropped just three games in the second.
Not content with that performance, Nadal stepped it up further to end the match in style with Sinner completely blown away 7-5 6-6 6-0. It was a chastening result for the teenager given all the excitement at the prospect of the match and given the 18th seed’s fine progress in his young career.
Nadal is billed to take on Diego Schwartzman of Argentina in the quarter-finals with a huge contest with world number one Novak Djokovic potentially on the cards for the semi-finals. Their final-four clash will be a repeat of last year’s final and, as it always is when they play, it will be an unmissable fan-favourite.
But before that, Djokovic will have to scale past another Italian, ninth seed Matteo Berrettini, after Berrettini was handed a walkover due to Roger Federer’s withdrawal from the tournament.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
