Jannik SINNER weathers storm in scintillating contest with Holger RUNE to reach Monte-Carlo Masters semi-finals

After Holger Rune played for three and a half hours yesterday, it would've been seen as a possibility that Jannik Sinner would've returned to the court at the Monte-Carlo Masters and steamrollered him. But in truth, it was a scintillating epic which saw the Italian prevail but lose a set in the process after having match points.

A near three hour epic, Sinner prevailed 6-4, 6-7, 6-3 and looked to be close to sealing a straight sets win in a tie-break. But Rune despite having played such a marathon against Grigor Dimitrov was up to the task amid a crowd that were very much against him. Next up for Sinner though is Stefanos Tsitsipas after he opened Quarter-Finals day with a successful 6-4, 6-2 win over Karen Khachanov.

The difference between the pair numbers wise came with the amount won on the first and second serve from Sinner dwarfing Rune as well as converting 2/8 break points so he was crafting opportunities on the Rune serve. Something which Rune only did twice and failed to convert. Rune also had 23 unforced errors to 11 from Sinner despite more winners.

The closeness break wise was evident as Sinner prevailed in the opening set after saving a break point by going 3-2 up. Neither player was barely troubled on their serve from there and Rune was bringing the heat. Sinner though used that marginal gain to seal the opening set 6-4 and headed into the lead. Set two saw break chances, but none taken. On Rune's serve, Sinner was 40-0 up, but spurned it to go 3-2 up and in a mirror image, Rune was 40-0 up looking to go 6-5 ahead.

But this is when the meltdown came from Rune but also the revival. He had issues with the umpire and the crowd after line-calls again came to the fore and he received unsportsmanlike conduct warning for gesturing the crowd to shush. An ongoing battle with the umpire ensued and this seemingly looked like it was going to benefit Sinner. But it went all the way to a tie-break and two match points went begging for the Italian. Rune sealed the set.

But again another edition of one break saw Sinner snare it to go 5-3 up after fairly flawless service games from both and he finished it off first time of asking next up. 25-1 for the season and his biggest test in sometime but passed with flying colours.