US Open | Jannik Sinner gave Chris O’Connell no chance

(New York) Jannik Sinner never gave his US Open third-round opponent Chris O’Connell time to think about pulling off the kind of monumental upsets that eliminated Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz.

“It shows that this sport is unpredictable. Every time you lose a little bit of your level – whether it’s mentally, tennis-wise or physically – at the end it has a huge impact on the result,” Sinner noted.

“The two opponents they lost to played incredible tennis. And that happens.”

Not so for world number one Sinner, who emerged as the favorite to win the men’s singles title at Flushing Meadows. On Saturday, he won the first five games and 21 of the first 29 points to make it clear how things were going to go at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where he cruised to a 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 victory over O’Connell in less than two hours.

“I felt like he was in it from the start,” O’Connell said.

Taking to the court less than 15 hours after Djokovic’s loss to Alexei Popyrin and two days after Alcaraz’s loss to Botic van de Zandschulp, Sinner was as dominant as they come in every facet of the game.

With 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams watching, Sinner hit 15 aces and never faced a break point. He won five of O’Connell’s 12 serve games. He finished with more than twice as many winners (46) as unforced errors (22).

“The best tennis player I’ve ever played, for sure,” said O’Connell, 30.

Daniil Medvedev (2021), the only former US Open men’s champion still in the running, was scheduled to play Saturday night.

Since losing the first set in New York against Mackie McDonald, the 23-year-old Italian has had an impeccable performance, dropping a total of 18 games in nine sets.

Bidding for his second Grand Slam title of the year after winning his first at the Australian Open in January, Sinner will face American Tommy Paul (14)^e) in the fourth round on Monday.

Paul beat Canadian qualifier Gabriel Diallo 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-1, 7-6 (3).

“He’s moving well. He’s improved a lot lately. It’s going to be a tough challenge,” Sinner said of Paul, a 2023 Australian Open semi-finalist.

“He plays very good tennis, especially here in the United States.”

Perhaps Sinner was a little wary heading into Saturday’s match, given recent events. After all, this is only the third time in the professional era (the others being 1973 and 2000) that two of the top three seeds have been eliminated before the fourth round.

So Sinner woke up as the man most likely to win the U.S. Open, a status that belonged to Alcaraz (3^e) – the champion of Roland-Garros and Wimbledon this season – before the start of the tournament.

Djokovic (No. 2), the defending champion and holder of a record 24 major trophies among men, rose to the top of the list when Alcaraz was sent home on Thursday night, before also exiting prematurely on Friday night.

O’Connell, ranked 87^ehad hopes of creating another surprise, even though he has never beaten a top-10 player or advanced beyond the third round of a Grand Slam tournament.

What van de Zandschulp and Popyrin did gave O’Connell the chance to dream of something similar against Sinner.

“I mean, yeah, I have to believe it, but I felt like he was really on fire,” O’Connell said.

There’s something difficult about trying to string together a career-best win and another, and van de Zandschulp didn’t quite live up to that on Saturday, eliminated by Jack Draper (25).^e) 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

Draper, a 22-year-old British left-hander, has never advanced beyond the fourth round of a major tournament, as has his next opponent, Tomas Machac, who beat David Goffin 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.

“After the match [contre Alcaraz]it was a bit crazy,” van de Zandschulp said.

“You try to think about the next game, but the game from the day before often comes back to you. So, of course, it was difficult to play today after the last two days.”