The Italian 20-year-old, seeded 11th, took a long time to settle
down with 19 unforced errors in the first set and the Spanish
claycourt specialist quickly ran away with it.
Sinner upped his game to break his opponent, ranked 89th in the
world, and move 5-4 up in the second but had to battle from 0-40 to
hold serve and level the match.
Another break midway through the third set gave him a two-game
cushion and Sinner bagged the set when his opponent sank a forehand
into the net.
In a fierce baseline battle lasting almost four hours, the pair
traded early breaks in the fourth set but Sinner got another to go
4-2 up.
Carballes Baena, who reached the third round in Paris two years ago
with five-set five-hour win over Denis Shapovalov, finally
surrendered when he sent a backhand long on the Italian's first
match point.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond)
[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.![](column_spacer.png) |
|