Chilean No.1 Christian Garin has continued his unbeaten run on the clay this season by lifting the Rio Open title on Sunday.
The 23-year-old held his nerve to defeat Italian underdog Gianluca Mager 7-6(3), 7-5. A player who knocked Dominic Thiem out of the tournament earlier this week and was playing in his first ATP Final at the age of 25. During the final Garin lost a break advantage in the first set before battling back to prevail in the tiebreak. Then in the second, he claimed four straight games whilst trailing 3-5 to lift the title. His first ever at ATP 500 level.
“I’m really emotional and winning the Rio Open means a lot to me. It’s hard to describe this past week. I slept only four or five hours and woke up nervous this morning and it ended up being one of the best days of my life”, Garin told rioopen.com. “Winning an event of this magnitude motivates me even more. I will never forget this week. And receiving the trophy from Gustavo Kuerten’s hand means so much to me… It’s for moments like this that I play tennis and make daily sacrifices. This means so so much to me and I’m still really emotional. Now it’s time to enjoy a bit and tomorrow I’m back to work.”
It is the second consecutive tournament Garin has won on the ATP Tour. Tour weeks ago, he won the Córdoba Open in Argentina, where he defeated Diego Schwzrtman in the final. He has now won nine matches in a row since the Australian Open.
As a result of his surge on the tour, the former French Open boy’s champion has broken into the world’s top 20 for the first time this week. Making him the first player from his country to do so since Fernando Gonzalez back in 2010. He is now the second highest ranked player from South America after Schwartzman, who is ranked five places ahead of him in 13th spot.
“I’m happy with my ranking and I also know I have a lot of things to get better, so that’s a good a thing. It means I still have a long way to go.” He said.
Garin has now played five finals on the ATP Tour within the past 12 months with all of them occurring on the clay.
Opelka dominates Delray
Reilly Opelka and Yoshihito Nishioka (photo Twitter) @delraybeachopen)
Another winner on the ATP Tour on Sunday was America’s Reilly Opelka, who was forced to play two matches within one day en route to the title due to poor weather earlier in the week.
Opelka kicked-off proceedings with a hard fought 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-3, win over former world No.3 Milos Raonic. A stern encounter that lasted just over two hours. A couple hours later, Opelka returned to the court for his title clash against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka, who was contesting his first ATP final outside of Asia. Nishioka defeated Opelka two weeks ago at the New York Open.
Engaged in another lengthy battle, the home favourite fired 27 aces and won 87% of his first service points to down Nishioka 7-5, 6-7(4), 6-2. Making it the fourth time an American man has won the title within the past five years. The only exception was Radu Albot, who was triumphant in 2019.
“It was important for me to get that second break in the third, especially against Yoshi, who scraps and fights,” Opelka said of his opponent. “Yoshi’s a nightmare. He’s not a guy you want to play when you’re already fatigued and tired. So physically it was really a big test for me. I think that was right around my limit, playing six sets like that. Almost feels like playing a grand slam. I’ve played a lot of tennis (lately), so it was a test of my fitness. Hard part for me is warming up my body every day. I didn’t have much time to recover.”
The victory comes after what has been a slow start to the season for Opelka. In his first three tournaments played, he has only managed to win one match. Doing so against Jason Jung in New York.
Despite falling short, there is still a reason for Nishioka to celebrate. The 24-year-old has climbed 15 places in the rankings to a career high of 48th in the world.
“It’s very tough to break his service game,” Nishioka said of facing Opelka. “I don’t have a big serve. (But) I made a final this time, which is not bad I think, so next time maybe a trophy.”
Opelka has also risen 15 places in the rankings to 39th in the world. Eight spot before his career best.
Jannik Sinner (left) and Carlos Alcaraz (right) - Indian Wells 2024 (photo Twitter X @BNPPARIBASOPEN)
All good things come to an end. Jannik Sinner was on a 19-match winning streak since his loss to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Nitto ATP Finals that included his first Grand Slam win in Australia last January, and appeared as the most in-form player at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, the first Masters 1000 tournament of the season. But as he faced Carlos Alcaraz in an eagerly-awaited semifinal, he was unable to continue his quest for the third consecutive title of the season, succumbing to the Spaniard 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The match was a face-off for the no. 2 spot in the ATP ranking that Alcaraz will still occupy next Monday regardless of the result of Sunday’s final, and this is a much-needed confidence boost for him after a disappointing start of the season where he was handily beaten in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open by Zverev and did not win any tournament during the South American clay court swing where he was ousted by Nicolas Jarry in Buenos Aires and had to retire for an ankle injury at the Rio Open.
The match, originally scheduled for 1.30 pm Pacific Time, had to be suspended for over three hours after only three games because of an unusual downpour. As the match resumed, Sinner appeared once again the perfectly-tuned machine that had been crushing opponents with metronomic regularity for the past weeks while Alcaraz was struggling to keep up with his opponent’s pace from the baseline.
The first set was smooth sailing for the Italian who cruised to a comprehensive 6-1 in 27 minutes: Alcaraz was tentative from the baseline and could not find the right position to fire his screamers and change the tactical discourse of the match. “Then at the beginning of the second set, as I saw he was making a lot of mistakes, I tried to be as solid as possible when I should have kept pushing instead – Sinner said during his press conference – and that’s what cost me the match in the end”.
While serving at 1-2 in the second set, a few uncharacteristic forehand mistakes started to dot his thus far spotless game, and that cost him the break that sent Alcaraz flying to a 4-1 advantage. The Spaniard then found the confidence to change his return position and make Sinner work a lot more on his service games, as the Italian struggled to find a countermeasure to the tactical shift in the match: “I kept doing the same thing over and over again”, Sinner stressed, and forehand unforced errors started to pile up to reach the burdensome number of 27 at the end of the match.
Sinner had the chance to find his way back into the second set while Alcaraz was serving at 3-5, but Carlos cancelled his break point with a laser backhand down the line that had the 15,000-strong crowd cheering on their feet.
The third set ran away very quickly from the Italian, who started touching repeatedly the back of his left leg around his knee. Sinner got broken again during the third game, and while going for a last-ditch attempt to recover a short volley by Alcaraz he tumbled to the ground slightly injuring his right elbow and arm. From there onwards it was just more mistakes by Sinner and a clinical execution by Alcaraz on how to take home a match.
Novak Djokovic - Indian Wells 2024 (foto Ubitennis)
Novak Djokovic says he still has a ‘great feeling’ in Indian Wells after playing his first match at the event for five years.
The world No.1 battled to a 6-2, 5-7, 6-3, win over Aleksandar Vukic in what was his first taste of competitive tennis since losing in the semi-finals of the Australian Open. It was a far from smooth encounter for Djokovic, who hit 23 winners and won 83% of his first service points. In the second set, he was broken twice with the second of those occurring when he was serving at 5-6. Nevertheless, he battled back in the decider to win.
This year is the first time Djokovic has been able to play in the Masters 1000 event since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After the 2020 tournament was cancelled, he was unable to play the next three editions due to restrictions placed on unvaccinated foreign visitors to America. Despite the absence, the five-time champion states that his love for the event is as strong as ever.
“It feels great to come back with the win. It’s been five years and the great feeling is still there. I enjoyed myself very much. Beautiful stadium. Great atmosphere.” Djokovic said during his press conference. “I was a bit nervous at the beginning. I haven’t played a match in more than five weeks. I thought the start was good. Then I think he upped his game. “I probably lost a little bit of the momentum. We got into the third set, I thought the level of the tennis was pretty good in the third. Great points. He made me produce some really important points in games in order to prevail in this match. I’m glad that I was pushed, as well, which is important.”
Djokovic’s latest victory is his 400th in a Masters 1000 tournament. He is only the second player in history to have reached this milestone since the tournament category was introduced in 1990. The first to do so was Rafael Nadal who currently has 406 wins to his name.
He could create more history in Indian Wells should the Serbian go on to claim the title this year. If he does, he would become the first man to have won it for a sixth time. Although Djokovic is refusing to get too far ahead of himself.
“I would love to,” he said of trying to claim a sixth title. “Obviously there is still a long way to get to the title match, but it’s a good start.’ “I know I can always produce better tennis. Obviously very self-critical, and I think some extent it’s also important because then it puts you in the right mindset of wanting to work more and being engaged in the process of improving on a daily basis, or trying to perfect your game and right the wrongs that you’ve done in a previous match or previous practice session. “So that’s what I’m going to keep doing and hopefully building my game as this tournament is played over 10 to 14 days, so it allows you to have the practice days also between matches, which then allows you to work on certain specifics in the game.”
Djokovic will play Italy’s Luca Nardi in the next round.
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz overcame injury doubts to edge past Matteo Arnaldi 6-7(5) 6-0 6-1 at Indian Wells.
The world number two had to endure an aggressive opening set from the in-form Italian to reach the third round.
After a tight opening set, Alcaraz raced through the last two sets as he set up a third round showdown with Felix Auger-Aliassime.
The Spaniard had entered this match with injury doubts after retiring from his match with Thiago Monteiro in Rio De Janeiro.
However Alcaraz was very pleased with how his ankle held up as he moved on in California, “Honestly it surprised me. I felt great, moving normally without thinking about it,” Alcaraz told the ATP website.
“It was a really good match to realise that I am better than I thought. I think I played great tennis because of that. I had to change just a few things. I made a few mistakes in the first set… I had to put in more first serves in the second and third set, and I think that was a big key to improving my level a little bit, to be in the rallies — long rallies as well, to get the rhythm, and I’m really happy to get it at the end.
“But right now I’m getting better and feeling really, really well. But I think I have to get a good rhythm step by step. I think that’s the big difference between last year and this one. This [is a] really special tournament for me. I want to do it well. This is the first match playing high intensity and I didn’t know how it’s going respond, the ankle.
“I have to deal with it, but I didn’t deal with the nerves very well in the first set, moving differently, hitting the ball differently. My game is playing aggressive all the time. And try to stay calm and wait for my chances.
“When you get nervous, you don’t think about it. You don’t hit the ball as good as you want. You don’t move as good as you want. I think that’s the big difference.”
Alcaraz will hope for a good week this week as he defends the Indian Wells title as he aims to win a first title since Wimbledon this week.
Next for the Spaniard will be Felix Auger-Aliassime, who defeated Constant Lestienne in straight sets.
Auger-Aliassime currently leads the head-to-head 3-1 but Alcaraz won their last meeting in Indian Wells last year.