Italian Open: Holger Rune sets up Novak Djokovic quarter-final, Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev knocked out
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Updated 16/05/2023 at 20:39 GMT
Holger Rune is through to the Italian Open quarter-finals on his Rome debut with a gritty three-sets win over Alexei Popyrin. Rune, who has shot up the ATP rankings in the last year and won the Paris Masters last November, will play world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the next round. It was a day of upsets as world No. 8 Jannik Sinner and No. 6 Andrey Rublev have gone out at the last 16 stage.
Highlights as Rune and Zverev win rain-delayed matches in Rome
Holger Rune has progressed to the quarter-finals of the Italian Open, beating Australia's Alexei Popyrin 6-4 5-7 6-4 in just over three hours.
The No. 7 seed produced a confident display against qualifier Popyrin to set up a meeting with Novak Djokovic in the next round.
Earlier in the day, Djokovic beat Great Britain's Cameron Norrie in a spicy clash to make the quarter-finals for the 17th year in a row.
Rune broke early in the first set to go 3-1 ahead, and despite facing two break points at 3-2, he saved those and managed to hold firm to take the advantage in the encounter.
The second set was nip and tuck until the business end when Popyrin seized the initiative, breaking the Rune serve by converting a set point.
Rune appeared to be having issues with his vision when he trailed 4-6 7-5 2-1 and called on a medical trainer.
But he looked unaffected when he returned to court and broke the Popyrin serve to move into a 3-2 lead in the decider after a wild forehand from the world No. 77.
Momentum was firmly with Rune as Popyrin expressed his displeasure at the umpire about the 25-second rule in between points as he was going over the time limit for using his towel.
Popyrin continued to make unforced errors yet Rune could not capitalise on his opponent's serve. Rune squandered four match points on Popyrin's serve before finishing the contest in the very next game with a love hold.
Jannik Sinner is out of the Italian Open after a shock 6-7(3) 6-2 6-2 defeat to No. 24 seed Francisco Cerundolo.
Sinner's wait for a first Masters title continues as he looked fatigued against his Argentine opponent who was clinical from the baseline.
"It's one of the best moments of my career," Cerundolo said after the match.
"I played an unbelievable match. After the first set which was one hour and 15 minutes it was difficult to recover off that because it was super tough. I thought I played my best tennis of the week the last two sets.
"Jannik is one of the best players in the world. He's playing fantastic. My level was great today and it gives me a lot of confidence to keep going."
Sinner won a hard-fought first set where both players broke each other twice before eventually reaching a tie-break. The home favourite raced to a 6-1 lead, Cerundolo clawed two points back before Sinner wrapped it up.
The second set was entirely controlled by Cerundolo who started by reeling off three games in a row. Sinner got one break back, but the Argentine maintained a ferocious intensity from the baseline and forced a decider after a love hold of serve.
Cerundolo converted his third break point in the opening game of the third set to take the lead for the first time in the match. He never looked back after that, consolidating his service games to record an excellent win on his third match point.
This year's Monte Carlo Masters champion Andrey Rublev is also out after a 7-6(5) 4-6 6-2 defeat to qualifier Yannick Hanfmann.
Hanfmann, who had only twice been in the main draw of a Masters event before Rome, was extremely aggressive off his forehand, hitting 43 winners in total compared to Rublev's 33.
Fittingly the German slammed down an ace to record the biggest win of his career.
World No. 4 Casper Ruud will play Cerundolo after reaching the quarter-finals for the third year in a row following an easy 6-1 6-3 win over Laslo Djere in just over an hour.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is through to the last 16 after beating Lorenzo Sonego 6-4 7-6(3) in two hours and six minutes.
The world No. 5 had to save two set points in a 85-minute second set, but showed his superior quality in the tie-break to topple the Italian.
Tsitsipas will play another Italian later on Tuesday as Lorenzo Musetti finished off his rain-delayed match by beating Frances Tiafoe 5-7 6-4 6-3.
Tiafoe was not pleased with the umpire and match supervisor on Monday as both players continued to play on when raining was coming down onto the court.
Alexander Zverev set up a quarter-final meeting with Daniil Medvedev after finishing off his rain-delayed match against J.J. Wolf, beating the American 6-4 7-5.
It was the first meeting between Zverev and Medvedev since their tense encounter in Monte Carlo last month and it was won by the latter, 6-2 7-6(3), in just under two hours.
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