Jannik Sinner Sets up Cincinnati Quarterfinal Clash with a Player He has Never Defeated: “I Like These Challenges”

Jannik Sinner is bidding to defend his Cincinnati Masters title, and if he wins, he will be defending a Masters 1000 title for the first time.

Jannik Sinner Sets up Cincinnati Quarterfinal Clash with a Player He has Never Defeated: “I Like These Challenges”

Jannik Sinner (Image via X/The Tennis Letter)

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Jannik Sinner, in the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Masters, will be up against a player whom he has never defeated in his career. It’s Felix Auger-Aliassime, the Canadian ace, who holds a 2-0 head-to-head record over the World No.1.

The upcoming match will be their second encounter in Cincinnati. They met in the fourth round here back in 2022, which the 25-year-old won in three sets. In their first encounter, in the fourth round of the 2022 Madrid Open, Auger-Aliassime breezed past the World No.1. They were also scheduled to meet in the quarterfinal of last year’s Madrid Open, but Sinner handed him the walkover.

Even though the World No.28 leads in their head-to-head matchups, Sinner will enter their upcoming clash as the favorite to win, because at present, he is one of the best players on the tour and has achieved way more than Auger-Aliassime. Sinner, following his fourth-round win, told Tennis Channel that he is expecting nothing but a tough challenge from Auger-Aliassime.

Yeah, I never won against Felix. We had a very tough match here. I had match point. I lost it. But it was a great match, and he has huge, huge potential, especially when he’s serving well. This is one surface what suits him very well…of the game that he plays, and it’s going to be very difficult, but in the same time, I’m looking forward for this match. I like these challenges. Hopefully, I can raise the level.

Before scheduling the match against Auger-Aliassime, Sinner went past France’s Adrian Mannarino in straight sets, which included a tie-breaker in the second set. Auger-Aliassime dismantled Benjamin Bonzi in the previous round.

He has never progressed beyond the quarterfinals in Cincinnati, and before this season, he reached the stage in 2021 and 2022. Auger-Aliassime has also not yet won a Masters 1000 title, but has played only one final in this category- at the 2024 Madrid Open.

So far this season, he has played three finals and lifted the titles at the Adelaide International and the Open Sud de France. The final that he lost was to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Dubai Open.

Paolo Bertolucci lauds Jannik Sinner for his meticulousness

Jannik Sinner hit five double faults during his third-round match against Gabriel Diallo, also the most in the season for him in a best-of-three set match. But to curb that from happening again, he immediately had a practice session, for which compatriot and former ATP pro, Paolo Bertolucci, lauded him.

Jannik Sinner Cincinnati 2025
Jannik Sinner (image via Instagram/Jannik Sinner)

Tiny flaws, of which Sinner was fully aware, so much so that he requested a practice session immediately after the match to work on the details he didn’t like. This demonstrated, once again, Jannik’s almost obsessive meticulousness, his extraordinary application that helped him carve a gap with the rest of the competition.

Paolo Bertolucci wrote in his column for La Gazzetta dello Sport

The 23-year-old has lifted four Masters 1000 so far in his career. He is also playing the Cincinnati Open as the defending champion. Last year, he beat home favorite Frances Tiafoe in the championship clash.

Sinner is bidding to defend a Masters 1000 trophy for the first time in his career. If he wins, he will become the first man since Roger Federer (2014-2015) to defend the Cincinnati title. The four-time Grand Slam champion last lifted a title in this category at the 2024 Shanghai Masters by defeating Novak Djokovic. So far this season, he has played four finals and won the Australian Open and the Wimbledon Championships, losing at the Italian Open and the French Open.

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