Jannik Sinner ended Cameron Norrie’s run in the fourth round of the Madrid Open and then hit out at the tournament’s scheduling.
World number one Sinner made it 20 consecutive wins with a 6-2 7-5 victory to set up an exciting clash with new Spanish wonderkid Rafael Jodar.
The 19-year-old has been the talk of his home city and is through to the quarter-finals on his debut but Sinner believes he has not been well served by the schedule having only completed his third-round win over Joao Fonseca just before 1am on Monday morning.
The two-match night session in the Spanish capital does not begin until 8pm, and Sinner said: “For our body and mind, going on court at 11pm and you play at midnight, past midnight, it’s not easy.
“Then also, even if you have a day off, the fans they see only us on court, and then we finish at 1.15am. But then you have press conference, recovery, eating, treatment, you don’t go to bed until 4 or 5am. It messes up the whole day. So I think we can do better, definitely.”
Jodar continued his dream run, beating Vit Kopriva 7-5 6-0 on Tuesday. Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham was again in attendance along with a number of the Chelsea squad.
Norrie had never played a competitive match against Sinner before but admitted ahead of the contest that the Italian “rips me up and smokes me” in practice.
Sinner is looking to make history by winning a fifth consecutive Masters 1000 title but he has admitted he does not find the conditions in Madrid easy and he is yet to hit top form in the Spanish capital.
It was the same against Norrie but he still had too much for the British number one, who ultimately could not handle the relentlessness of Sinner’s hitting.
After a one-sided first set, Sinner briefly wobbled when he dropped serve in the middle of the second to allow Norrie back on terms but it was a brief reprieve.
The consolation for Norrie, who was close to dropping out of the top 100 a year ago, is that he is set to return to the top 20 next week.
Sinner, who has never been beyond the quarter-finals in Madrid, said: “We know each other quite well, we practised a lot in the last tournaments, so we both kind of knew what to expect.
“I felt like I was serving quite well today in the important moments. This surface is very, very different than all the other surfaces so it’s very tough to get the right feedback and sometimes you feel like you’re not playing your best.
“But I’m very happy to be here in the quarters again. It’s a tournament I haven’t played a lot so it means a lot to me.”
Defending champion Casper Ruud looked to be heading for the exit door against a resurgent Stefanos Tsitsipas, but he saved two match points in the deciding set before claiming a 6-7 (4) 7-6 (2) 7-6 (3) victory.
Also through to the last eight is in-form young Frenchman Arthur Fils, who next faces Czech Jiri Lehecka.
Second seed Alexander Zverev wrapped up the evening’s action with a hard-fought 6-4 6-7 (4) 6-3 win over Czech Jakub Mensik.
The German will meet Italian 10th seed Flavio Cobolli in the quarter-finals.
In the women’s event, world number one Aryna Sabalenka suffered a shock quarter-final defeat to American 30th seed Hailey Baptiste.
Sabalenka looked on course for a routine win when she breezed through the first set, but Baptiste hit back in the second before holding her nerve in a final-set tie-break to triumph 2-6 6-2 7-6 (6) in two-and-a-half hours.
Mirra Andreeva battled through to the semi-finals with a 7-6 (1) 6-3 victory over Leylah Fernandez.
