Fonseca, backed by giddy throngs of Brazilian fans, fought valiantly and had chances to win both sets. But in the end it was stoic Sinner who held court, delivering steady excellence in the critical moments of both sets to escape in straight sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoao is an incredible player, incredible talent,\u201d Sinner said on court after the first meeting between the two players. \u201cVery powerful from both sides. He was serving very well. Maybe he dropped a bit at the end of the second set, but I’m very happy to get through.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like trying to be as aggressive as possible was the key. I dropped a bit of intensity at the end of the second set, but he played incredible tennis out there, and the atmosphere has been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loud and proud<\/p>\n
Stadium 1 erupted as Fonseca took a 6-3 lead in the opening-set tiebreak, but he couldn\u2019t close out the four-time major champion, and the Italian snuck away with the final five points.<\/p>\n
In the second set, the 19-year-old World No. 35 fell behind early but rallied behind his faithful when Sinner served for the match at 5-4, producing some of the most breathtaking tennis of the evening.<\/p>\n
Pulsating power, pinpoint accuracy \u2014 it was bizarre to see Sinner treated with such disdain, even if only temporarily.<\/p>\n
Once again Sinner turned the tide in the tiebreak, however. He rallied and took five of the final six points to book his spot in the quarterfinals, where 20-year-old American Learner Tien waits. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt never took a breath tonight, right out of the gates they were both going toe-to-toe,\u201d said Mark Petchey, also commentating for Tennis Channel.<\/p>\n
And what was the prevailing sentiment when match point had been claimed? Bring on the next edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fonseca, backed by giddy throngs of Brazilian fans, fought valiantly and had chances to win both sets. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-516842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}