Beijing (AFP) – Jannik Sinner reached his third China Open final in a row on Tuesday and will face talented teenager Learner Tien as defending women’s champion Coco Gauff battled on. The world number two Sinner beat Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 and is one victory away from a second title in Beijing. The Italian will be red-hot favourite in Wednesday’s final against unseeded American Tien, 19, who beat a hobbling Daniil Medvedev.
Their semi-final went to a deciding third set but the 29-year-old Russian fell 0-4 down and was barely able to move by the end, before retiring in pain and angry. The famously feisty Medvedev, whose leg was strapped and had been dealing with cramps, was handed a code violation for lack of effort in the second game of the third set. That triggered a furious response from Medvedev.
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“Why is every referee in the world trying to intimidate me?” Medvedev said as he approached the chair umpire. “I’m telling you I am giving my best effort. I’m not going to try to continue.” “Thanks a lot, eh?” Medvedev spat at the chair umpire as he limped from the court. Tien, at 19 years and nine months old, is the second-youngest man to reach the Beijing final after Rafael Nadal. It will need something special for him to upset Sinner, whose only loss on Beijing’s centre Diamond Court has been to great rival Carlos Alcaraz, who won last year’s championship match in three gripping sets.
“It’s a very special place for me. This court has always been amazing,” Sinner, beaten by Alcaraz in the recent US Open final, said. “Many things were positive finding myself again here, playing the last match of the tournament, it’s great,” he added. Alcaraz is not defending his title in the Chinese capital and on Tuesday won the Japan Open in Tokyo.
– ‘Really aggressive’ – In the women’s draw, Gauff beat Belinda Bencic 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 and plays 66th-ranked Eva Lys of Germany in the quarter-finals. “It was a tough match,” Gauff, the American second seed, said. “I had chances in the first to close it out but overall I’m happy with how I fought. She was being really aggressive.”
There were frustrations on both sides of the court at a largely empty stadium as the players switched between one half darkened by shade and the other in the blazing sun. There was a flashpoint between the two players during a changeover in the second set when Switzerland’s 15th seed Bencic said: “Your team is chatting. I’m too old for these mind games, okay?” “You’re the one playing the mind games,” Gauff shot back. The 21-year-old Gauff kept it together to win the tiebreak when Tokyo Olympic champion Bencic double-faulted on set point and threw her racquet in anger.
The world number three Gauff broke early in the third set and carried that momentum through to win when a flagging Bencic returned weakly into the net. With her last-16 victory, Gauff qualified for the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia in November. “Happy to qualify once again. Happy to be back in Riyadh and I’m glad I was able to do it here,” Gauff told the on-court interviewer.
Gauff faces Lys, who is into her first quarter-final in a WTA 1000 event after defeating McCartney Kessler of the United States 4-6, 6-1, 6-2. “I’m trying to hold back my tears,” Lys said. “I’ve had some really tough matches. I don’t know where I found the strength, but I just kept going and it means so much to me to be in my first quarter-final.”
© 2024 AFP
