Sinner queries schedule, surges into Madrid Open quarters

Jannik Sinner suggested the Madrid Open organisers should reconsider their tournament scheduling to avoid late-night finishes like the one Rafael Jodar experienced in the third round on Sunday.

In a rare 11:00 am start on Tuesday, Sinner moved past British 19th seed Cameron Norrie 6-2, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals.

He explained he was put on first on Manolo Santana Stadium so that Jodar, his potential next opponent, would be scheduled in the afternoon to give the Spaniard time to recover from his three-set win over Joao Fonseca that ended at 1:00 am on Monday morning.

“It’s quite unusual for me,” Sinner told Tennis TV about his early kick-off.

“I don’t know the last time I played at 11. But for me it doesn’t matter what time. I try to do my best. There was a question if it would be me or Jodar to play at 4. But I think it’s right he plays at 4, because he finished very, very late.

“But at the same time, I feel like we need to make some adjustments to the scheduling of the day. Two matches (starting) from 8pm is very late.

“Even though you have one day in between. But still it’s very, very late.

“You finish at 1:30am, and you need to eat, you need to have treatment, so it’s very late. But we try to adapt ourselves, our bodies, our minds, so from my side it was a good performance today.”

In his first-ever meeting with Norrie, Sinner won 81 percent of his first-serve points, and 63 percent of the points behind his second delivery on his way to notching a 25th consecutive victory at the Masters 1000 level.

Sinner, who is bidding to reach the semi-finals for the first time in the Spanish capital, will next face 19-year-old Jodar in what will be a highly-anticipated last-eight showdown.

The Italian world number one is just the second man in series history to win his first 20 Masters 1000 matches of the season, joining Novak Djokovic, who achieved that feat twice, in 2011 and 2015.

Later in the day, Jodar’s dream run on home soil continued with a convincing 7-5, 6-0 thumping of world number 66 Vit Kopriva.

The Madrid-born wildcard advanced to the biggest quarter-final of his young career, and improved to 12-1 on clay so far this season.

“I’m super happy with my level today and with my level this in this tournament,” Jodar said, who once again had Real Madrid footballer Jude Bellingham supporting him from the stands.

“It’s always special to play at home in front of many people that you know and they come to support you.”

Casper Ruud fought back from the brink to keep his title defence alive with a 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/3) victory over former finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.

In a high-quality three-hour contest, Tsitsipas led 5-3 in the decider, holding two match points, and served for the victory at 5-4, but Ruud, who was 0/11 in break points up until then, found a way to take down the Greek’s serve and went on to clinch the tie-break.

“I was on the brink of being on the way home already, so just really happy and proud the way I fought back,” said the Norwegian 12th seed.

Last week’s Barcelona champion Arthur Fils advanced to the quarter-finals at the Caja Magica with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Argentine 25th seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry.

Agencies