Sinner puts stop to Bublik's heroics
World number one Jannik Sinner marched on in his relentless pursuit of a first French Open title with a typically efficient win over Kazakh showman Alexander Bublik to reach the semi-finals.
King of he drop shot Bublik had put out two top-10 seeds en route to the last eight – Australia's Alex de Minaur and Britain's Jack Draper – but Sinner ensured no repeat with a comprehensive 6-1 7-5 6-0 victory on Wednesday.
The near-flawless victory, in just 1 hour, 49 minutes, ensured Sinner became the first Italian man to play in six grand slam semi-finals and extended his winning run at the majors to 19 matches, after his triumphs at last year's US Open and the Australian Open in January.
Sinner has not dropped a set, and has lost 36 games all told in his five matches to date.
The Court Philippe Chatrier roof was open after a cold, rainy morning and Sinner raced away to a 5-0 lead before Bublik got on the board and then threatened to break the top seed.
Sinner snuffed out his challenge to win the first set with ease but ran into trouble in the next set when Bublik pulled out several trademark drop shots from his bag of tricks and worked the No.1 seed harder to stay level after 10 games.
"We've played each other a couple of times already, so we already knew what to expect a little bit. But, in other aspects, you never know how he is going to play," Sinner said.
An untimely dip allowed Sinner to pounce and the three-time grand slam champion broke before holding comfortably to stop any chance of a comeback from the world No.62 and move two sets ahead.
The one-way traffic resumed in the third set. Bublik hit a failed underarm serve while trying to avoid going a double break down, before Sinner tightened his grip to seal the win and book a semi-final against either Alexander Zverev or Novak Djokovic.
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