{"id":439373,"date":"2026-01-26T22:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/439373\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T22:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:05:07","slug":"sinner-takes-the-easy-road-to-quarterfinals-at-ao-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/439373\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinner takes the easy road to quarterfinals at AO 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the drama of his third-round win against Eliot Spizzirri, Monday\u2019s straight-sets passage into another Australian Open quarterfinal was just what Jannik Sinner<\/a> needed.<\/p>\n

MORE: All the scores from Day 9 at AO 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

The two-time defending AO champion suffered cramp in Saturday\u2019s conditions during that four-set victory over the American, but it was business as usual on Day 9 as he raised his game when it mattered to beat fellow Italian Luciano Darderi 6-1 6-3 7-6(2).\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The AO 2024 and 2025 champion has now won 18 Australian Open matches in a row, and takes his overall win streak to 19 contests since his most recent defeat in Shanghai last October.<\/p>\n

After saving two break points in the opening game, Sinner was razor-sharp during the first two sets and played a quite brilliant tiebreak to finish a much more competitive period when Darderi threw the kitchen sink at him. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The result puts the four-time major champion into his fourth successive Melbourne quarterfinal, where he\u2019ll play American Ben Shelton or Norway\u2019s Casper Ruud on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

MORE: AO 2026 men’s singles draw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the third set I felt like I had a couple of break chances, couldn\u2019t use them, and then I got very, very tight so I\u2019m very happy that I closed it in three sets,\u201d admitted Sinner, who is bidding to become the fourth player in history to win three consecutive Australian Open men\u2019s singles titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to raise my level. I started off very well the match, and also [happy] with how I closed with some really important pressure points.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the drama of his third-round win against Eliot Spizzirri, Monday\u2019s straight-sets passage into another Australian Open quarterfinal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-439373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}