Indian Wells (California), March 17: Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 to end the Italian’s 19-match winning streak and advance to the BNP Paribas Open final on Saturday night.
Alcaraz retained his world No. 2 ranking with the victory and extended his winning streak to 11 matches at Indian Wells, where he’ll play either Tommy Paul or Daniil Medvedev in Sunday’s title match.
Sinner led 2-1 in the first set when the match was suspended for more than three hours because of rain in the Southern California desert. Rain also affected the women’s semifinals on Friday night.
Sinner went on to dominate the first set before Alcaraz changed his tactics. The Spaniard started coming to the net more and moving Sinner up and back.
Sinner could have knocked Alcaraz out of the second spot with a win. He had won 19 matches in a row dating to last year, including 16 straight this year.
Alcaraz earned the only break of the second set in the fourth game with a forehand drop volley winner. He faced a break point on his serve in the seventh game, but shook it off eventually served out the set.
Alcaraz broke Sinner in the third and fifth games of the third. The players were blasting the ball from both sides and attacking the net, which made for several entertaining and sharply angled volley exchanges.
Alcaraz led 40-love on his serve for his first match point when he netted a backhand. Sinner’s smash dashed Alcaraz’s second match point before the Spaniard closed it out with a forehand crosscourt winner.
Sinner had 38 unforced errors to 24 for Alcaraz and the Italian had 21 winners to 19 for Alcaraz.
In the women’s doubles final, top-seeded Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Elise Mertens of Belgium defeated third-seeded Storm Hunter of Australia and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4.
The winners split $447,300. (AP)
