Cincinnati, Aug 14 (IANS) Carlos Alcaraz sprinted into the Cincinnati Open quarterfinals with a convincing 6-1, 6-4 win over Italian Luca Nardi.

Alcaraz closed out the first set in just 27 minutes, making up for a late start to his feature night match, after the Centre Court schedule was impacted by an extended rain delay earlier in the day.

In the second set Alcaraz was trailing 2-4 before tallying four consecutive games to advance after 80 minutes. The 22-year-old won a lengthy, eight-deuce game at 4-4, during which Nardi double faulted on back-to-back points to allow the second seed to serve for the match, ATP reports.

A 21-time tour-level titlist, Alcaraz is seeking his first Cincinnati crown. He reached the final in 2023 and held championship point before rival Novak Djokovic stormed back to lift the trophy.

The Spaniard, who is seeded to meet World No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the final for the fourth consecutive tournament in which they have both featured, next plays ninth seed Andrey Rublev, who beat Francisco Comesana 6-2, 6-3 to avenge last year’s Wimbledon first-round loss to the Argentine.

Earlier, defending champion Jannik Sinner overcame a resilient performance from French qualifier Adrian Mannarino 6-4, 7-6(4) in a rain-disrupted match to mive a steo closer to retaining his crown and capturing his first ATP Masters 1000 title of the season.

With his one-hour, 48-minute victory, Sinner extended his winning streak on hard courts to 24 matches, surpassing Novak Djokovic’s 2015 run of 23 wins and climbing to eighth place on the list of the longest hard-court winning streaks of this century. The Italian’s last defeat on the surface came against Carlos Alcaraz in the Beijing final last October, according to ATP stats.

Sinner will next meet 23rd seed Felix Auger-Aliassime or another Frenchman, Benjamin Bonzi in his fifth quarter-final of the year.

Elsewhere, third seed Alexander Zverev led 14th seed Karen Khachanov 7-5, 3-0 when the Toronto finalist retired after 70 minutes of battle.

–IANS

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