Indian Wells: Sinner starts hunt for maiden title with ruthless win over Svrcina

Add as a preferred source on Google

Jannik Sinner booked his place in the third round at Indian Wells with a routine straight-sets victory over Dalibor Svrcina.

The world number two defeated Svrcina 6-1 6-1 in just 65 minutes to set up a third-round match with Denis Shapovalov.

After both players served to love in their opening service games, Sinner converted two of his three break point opportunities and saved one of his own, as the Italian won five consecutive games to take the first set.

Sinner continued that momentum in the second, where he raced into a 4-0 lead as Svrcina had no answer for the second seed's pace and power.

However, Sinner, who is yet to win the title in California, needed five match points to eventually clinch victory as Svrcina held on for as long as possible.

Elsewhere, Alexander Zverev overcame a potential hurdle in Matteo Berrettini with relative ease.

The fourth seed won 6-3 6-4 and will face Mexican Open semi-finalist Brandon Nakashima in the third round.

Indian Wells: Sinner stream rolls through

Since 1973, Sinner is just the fourth player to begin with a 50-0 record against opponents ranked outside the ATP top 50, along with Jimmy Connors, Guillermo Vilas and John McEnroe.

Meanwhile, only two active players have claimed more ATP Masters-1000 match wins than Zverev (164) – Novak Djokovic (418) and Stan Wawrinka (166).