(Reuters) – A ruthless Jannik Sinner continued his domination of Daniil Medvedev as he powered past the defending Miami Open champion 6-1 6-2 on Friday to reach the final for the second straight year.
When Medvedev beat Sinner to claim the Miami title 12 months ago, he extended his head-to-head record over the Italian to 6-0. But since then, the second seed has enjoyed the upper hand as he has delivered the knockout blow on five successive contests, including a five-set thriller in the Australian Open final earlier this year.
There was no such drama on Hard Rock Stadium court as Sinner delivered a clinical performance to end Medvedev’s challenge in 69 minutes.
“I felt great on court today, usually the more you go on in a tournament the more comfortable I feel and I’m very happy about today’s performance,” Sinner said after reaching the Miami final for a third time in four years.
“I don’t think Daniil felt too well today he made a lot of mistakes he usually doesn’t make.
“For me it is an important tournament if I can get it good, if not I had another great chance.”
Sinner, whose only loss this season was a semi-final defeat to Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells two weeks ago, becomes the first player this season to reach three finals and now awaits the winner between Alexander Zverev and Grigor Dimitrov.
The Italian had Medvedev under pressure right from the gun with three break chances on the Russian’s opening service game converting on a blistering forehand winner for a 2-0 lead.
Medvedev would face another four break points on his next serve, with a relentless Sinner coming into the net and pounding another winner that had the crowd, which included Serena Williams, buzzing.
The third seeded Russian would finally hold serve at 5-1 but only delayed the inevitable as Sinner bagged a high quality opening set without committing a single unforced error.
Baffled and lost for ideas, Medvedev could do nothing to slow the rampaging Sinner who kept his foot firmly on the gas with another break to open the second set that left the world number four staring across the net with a stunned look.
Sinner would break Medvedev for a fourth time before holding serve to complete the rout.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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