Sinner, the sweet final dream goes through Ruud. Bolelli-Vavassori eliminated with heads held high

The extraordinary normality of Jannik Sinner in frequenting the racket empyrean, as a true host, leads us to look at today's semifinal against Ruud at the ATP Finals as an even easy, affordable match. The world number one has already beaten the tenacious Norwegian with a mature face twice, someone who looks older than his 25 years also because he has been frequenting the top levels of the ATP ranking for five years now. In both cases, the two faced each other on the indoor hard courts of Vienna. And we were in the two-year period of Covid, before ours took off. The game is played after 20.30:2,8 pm, and Jannik can still increase the XNUMX million TV viewers, now that the national football team is not involved.

The infinite and complete class of the Italian star against the resistant versatility of the Scandinavian, who yesterday was quick to obtain the first set that was worth the pass in the match against Rublev (then beaten 6-4, 5-7, 6-2). It is true that Ruud beat Alcaraz, and not just anyone. But Carlitos is far from the version of himself seen in the triumphs at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Yesterday he put up relative resistance to a superb Zverev. It ended 7-6, 6-4 for the German giant, animated by the dream of achieving his third triumph at the Finals. In the semifinals he will face Fritz as the favorite. In a possible final with Sinner, however, he would not be. "Sinner is anything but cold and glacial," said yesterday the Minister of Sport, Andrea Abodi. "As soon as he leaves the court he expresses his human dimension with a clarity, simplicity and coherence that I have never seen. He is a point of reference that we need."

After the match against Medvedev, Jannik had already said he was confident about the Tas case. "Three times it ended in my favor, which is positive," Sinner said. "I will work together with everyone, as always, and then we will see what comes out. I am very optimistic about how it will go. Umberto Ferrara? He is a really good trainer, he will do a great job with Matteo Berrettini who has had many physical problems."

The dream of the semifinal slipped away from the hands of the Italian doubles yesterday. Simone and Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori lost 3-6, 6-3, 3-10 (super tie-break) to the best duo in the world, Arevalo-Pavic. The decisive game was almost a no-brainer, after the Salvadoran and the Croatian – winners this year in the Roland Garros final against ours – had recovered at the end of a second set that had seen Bolelli and Vavassori also ahead 5-0. The semifinals today were Krawietz-Puetz against Thompson-Purcell and Heliovaara-Patten against Arevalo-Pavic.

The Italian women's tennis team is playing in Malaga today in the Billie Jean King Cup after losing the final last year against Canada. The bookmakers, writes Agipronews, see the Italians as favorites for the tournament, after their successes (it was called Fed Cup) in 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2013. It starts today against Japan in the quarterfinals, the non-playing captain Tathiana Garbin has selected Jasmine Paolini, Sara Errani, Elisabetta Cocciaretto, Martina Trevisan, and Lucia Bronzetti for the tournament.