Indian Wells, Sinner beats Wawrinka and is in the quarterfinals, now watch out for Fritz’s “reverse serve”

Jannik Sinner doesn’t miss a beat: he beats the old – but still vigorous – Stan Wawrinka 6-1 6-4, he earns a place in the quarterfinals of Indian Wells (he is the first blue to do it) and in the standings he overtakes for the first time in Rafa Nadal’s career, settling for now in 12th place. However, another positive week for Sinner, after the success in Montepellier and the final in Rotterdam. And it’s not over yet.

Tomorrow evening Jannik will meet the outgoing champion of the very vip Masters 1000 in California, the local hero Taylor Fritz, number 5 in the world, who in turn eliminated the Hungarian Fucsovics. Between the two there is only one precedent, precisely in Indian Wells in 2021: in the round of 16 Fritz won 6-4 6-3. “It’s been a long time since that game,” Taylor admits. «He has improved a lot, especially in his serve, I expect a very tough match. But I think we’ll also have a lot of fun.”

Speaking of serve: Fritz in California unleashed the so-called ‘reverse serve’, i.e. a serve cut to come out from the left, which for a right foot involves a reverse rotation of the wrist (don’t try to do it if you care about the tendons) decidedly unnatural and impossible to be ‘read’: the ball after the rebound escapes outwards as if a left-handed player using the ‘slice’ was serving.

“I was playing a long serve game against Fucsovics, and I was getting frustrated because I couldn’t win it,” Taylor says. «So I told myself I could try that solution (he had already used it in the past but in exhibitions, ed). I did it and I won the point by finally closing the game, it went well for me». Sinner is also confident: «Every game is different, against Mannarino I struggled with his flat backhand, Wawrinka plays with higher trajectories and I found the ball better. The score of the match with Stan is a lie (Jan has salted eight of the nine break points earned by the Swiss, ed), both of us played well, he has always been close in scoring and I was lucky at 4-3 in the second set . Now I hope to be fit for the match against Fritz». Beating him would mean getting the third success in his career against a top 5 in the world; for now Jan’s balance is 2 victories in 18 matches with players of that level.

The match is scheduled for 7 pm in Italy, live on Sky Sport, SuperTennis will broadcast it on a delayed basis at 2 pm the following day.