Top Seeds Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek Secure Victories at Cincinnati Open 2024
Top-ranked tennis players Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek advanced to the Cincinnati 2024 Open’s third round on Wednesday in an exciting show of skill and perseverance.
In this crucial US Open warm-up match, both players demonstrated their agility and resolve by smoothly switching from clay to hard courts.
Following their transformation from “the slowest surface to the fastest surface,” the top seeds managed to advance to the second round on Wednesday.
Iga Swiatek, rated #1, prevailed over Varvara Gracheva 6-0, 6-7 (8), 6-2 on Wednesday night in the Cincinnati Open on her comeback to hard courts.
Swiatek, who was playing on clay for the first time since Poland’s third-place result at the Olympics in Paris, set up a match against Marta Kostyuk, who defeated Lulu Sun 6-3, 7-5.
“For sure, the transition is probably the hardest, from like the slowest surface to the fastest surface,” stated Swiatek. “But that’s why I’m still happy with my performance, and looking forward to another match to kind of still do the grinding and implement what I was working on, but not really focusing on the results.”
As of May, Swiatek has won six WTA Tour titles and her third consecutive French Open championship.
In his opening match on the men’s side of the US Open tune-up event, top-ranked Jannik Sinner defeated American Alex Michelsen 6-4, 7-5.
Jiri Lehecka defeated fourth-seeded Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (2), 6-4 in the late match. In the women’s match earlier today, 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva defeated Emma Navarro, ranked eleventh, 6-2, 6-2. Andreeva was participating in her maiden match following her Paris silver medal in doubles.
“I just went out there, tried to show my best level, and tried to win a match, and I think I did it,” Andreeva stated.
Karolina Pliskova, the 2016 Cincinnati champion, will play Andreeva. Andreeva’s doubles partner in Paris, Russian Diana Shnaider, a semifinalist in Toronto, defeated Zhang Shuai 6-1, 6-4.
This season, Sinner has improved to 25-2 on hard courts and has moved on to a third-round match against Jordan Thompson of Australia. Sinner is attempting to make it to the Cincinnati quarterfinals for the first time.
“I’m thrilled to advance to the next round,” the Italian player exclaimed. “For me this is a place where I used to struggle a lot in the past years, so let’s see what I can do this time.” Sebastian Baez was defeated by Thompson. 6-2 and 6-4.
In his first competition since declaring he would not be receiving coaching from his father, Stefanos Tsitsipas came back to defeat Jan-Lennard Struff 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
The No. 9 seed, Tsitsipas, said last week that he will no longer be coached by Apostolos Tsitsipas following his defeat to Kei Nishikori in his opening match in Montreal.
