Jannik Sinner beat Grigor Dimitrov 6-3 6-4 to reach the fourth round at the Miami Open.
Sinner earned his first break at love in the fifth game and rallied from 0-30 down to hold serve to open up a 4-2 lead. The Italian player closed out the first set 6-3 with his second break in the ninth game.
Dimitrov started the second set with an early break to love in the first game after three forehand errors from Sinner and saved three break points to hold serve at deuce for 2-0. There were three consecutive breaks between the fourth and sixth games. Sinner pulled back on serve to draw level to 2-2. Dimitrov broke for the second time at deuce to take a 3-2 lead with a backhand down the line, but Sinner broke straight back to draw level to 3-3 after Dimitrov made his fifth double fault. Sinner sealed the win with another break on his third match point to move up to 10thin the ATP Live Ranking. He has a record of 10 wins to 2 defeats at the Miami Open.
Sinner finished runner-up to Hubert Hurkacz in the Miami Open final in 2021 and reached the quarter final last year before retiring against Francisco Cerundolo.
Sinner set up a fourth round match against world number 6 Andrey Rublev.
Sinner has improved his seasonal record to 18 wins to just 4 defeats, including 14 of his past 16 matches. He won the Montpellier title, finished runner-up to Danil Medvedev in the final in Rotterdam and lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinal in Indian Wells.
“It’s the first time I have played in the evening. I can be very with my returning game, especially on second serves, when I tried to be aggressive. He is such a talented and intelligent player, so I am very happy about how I played today”, said Sinner.