Smooth sailing Sinner through to fourth round as Rublev dumped out by Arnaldi

Jannik Sinner is through to the fourth round of the 2024 French Open after dumping out Pavel Kotov in a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win for the World No.1 elect who will ascend the summit if Novak Djokovic fails to reach the final or win the title in Paris.

Sinner faced Kotov in what was a tough match-up on paper for another reason. The Italian aggravated his hip injury last month against the Russian which put his French Open in doubt and he nearly had to withdraw. But he looked good in smoothly sailing past Kotov this time around. He now sits at nine sets played this week and nine sets won. He has won 10 Grand Slam matches in a row and sits at 31-2 in 2024.

He is at 51-4 since the US Open last year and after the post puke in the bin at the Beijing Open, he has been almost untouchable. Sinner next will face Corentin Moutet or Sebastian Ofner with his Quarter opening up to his advantage. He had chances in the opening set to break for a 2-1 lead but he spurned them and Kotov led. But he broke next time around which held the key in sealing the set. On his third break point, he took it for a 3-2 lead and won the set 6-4 from there. It could've been even simpler for Sinner.

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Sinner had chances to win by more than one break in the second set as he had the chance for 5-2. But he still won it 6-4. The third even more smooth sailing on both wings. Sinner led 3-2 with a break and there were no more breaks of serve from there as he romped to victory.

Certainly not something that can be said for one Andrey Rublev who was dumped out by Matteo Arnaldi with the Italian scoring one of the biggest wins of his career. He sealed it 7-6, 6-2, 6-4 in the third round. He countered Rublev's heavy hitting to win in the top 10 for the third time.

He won three consecutive points after saving a set point in the first set tie-break. Arnaldi hit 47 winners to avenge last year's Vienna loss to Rublev and he is into the fourth round at a Grand Slam for a second time. The first was the 2023 US Open showing his progression. He faces either Stefanos Tsitsipas or Zhizhen Zhang in the next round. Rublev is the highest seed to fall this fortnight so far. He also let his frustrations go on multiple occasions which confounded his misery against Arnaldi.

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