Sinner ignores Cincinnati chaos to reach fourth round

Jannik Sinner kept his mind on the job ahead as the world No. 1 brushed off repeated distractions from a pair of power failures to reach the Cincinnati Masters fourth round on Monday.

The defending champion took advantage of nearly 50 unforced errors from  Canadian Gabriel Diallo to post a scratchy 6-2, 7-6(6) decision.

Two of three power hits which hit a re-styled USD 260 million venue came during Sinner’s troubled match. 

They included a full outage which shut down scoreboards, electronic linecalling, wifi and courtside LED adverts followed by a slightly blaring fire alarm which both men decided to just play through which the umpire manually relayed any “out” calls from his table in the chair.

Those two glitches came after a 75-minute break for the afternoon’s first system crash which also shut down play around the grounds.

“It was a very difficult day at the office,” Sinner said. “He served well in the second set.

“You have to find the balance against these big servers. I struggled with that at times today. But I need tough matches like this, I’m happy I got one before the Grand Slam.

“This could have gone to a third set, if you don’t play well, you can lose them.

“I’m happy about today, but I know I can do things better.”

Sinner won his 23rd straight match on hardcourt, last losing to Carlos Alcaraz last autumn in Beijing.

Earlier, fourth seed Taylor Fritz and opponent Lorenzo Songo were sent to the locker room as the first electronic crisis struck.

The American came back out to complete a 7-6 (4), 7-5 win. 

The electronic problems just repeated those from the previous tournament in Toronto which also faced major glitches as tennis bosses try to take the sport completely digital with somewhat limited success.

Fritz won the 21st of his last 25 matches and emerged pleased with his showing. “I feel I can play better, but there has been no time to really train and get ready.

“I’m looking forward to fine tuning the week before the US Open.”