Montreal Masters: Sinner starts title defence strong

Italian Jannik Sinner, the top seed, advanced to the last 16 of the Montreal Masters by winning against Croat qualifier Borna Coric 6-2, 6-4 at Stade IGA on Thursday.

Coric, who won the Cincinnati title in 2022 but had to move his way through qualifying this year, was no match for a dialed in Sinner. The Italian made up for a low first serve percentage (49 percent) by striking 21 winners to just 10 unforced errors and giving Coric a look at just the one break point.

There will be plenty for Sinner to improve on in Montreal, however, as he looks ahead to a match against the winner of compatriot Lorenzo Sonego and Chilean Alejandro Tabilo, the No 15 seed, next.

Besides his sub-par serving stats, Sinner also only converted three of 11 break point opportunities. He’ll be wanting to up that heading into the latter stages of his first Masters 1000-level defence.

Coric, ranked No 94, beat Spaniard Pedro Martinez (6-4, 6-4) in the previous round of the Rogers Cup.

Montreal Masters 1000, other second-round matches (Stade IGA, hard, USD 6.795.555, most recent results first):

• Holger Rune (13) beat Pablo Carreno Busta: 6-1, 6-3
• Casper Ruud vs. James Duckworth: thursday
• Matteo Arnaldi beat Karen Khachanov (16): 7-5, 7-5
• Grigor Dimitrov (7) beat Rinky Hijikata (Q): 6-1, 6-0
• Alexander Zverev (2) beat Jordan Thompson: 6-1, 6-1
• Andrey Rublev (5) beat Tomas Martin Etcheverry: 7-6 (3), 6-2
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina beat Daniil Medvedev (3): 6-4, 1-6, 6-2
• Kei Nishikori beat Stefanos Tsitsipas (8): 6-4, 6-4
• Nuno Borges beat Ugo Humbert (12): 3-6, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4)
• Brandon Nakashima (Q) beat Tommy Paul (10): 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-1
• Sebastian Korda vs. Taylor Fritz
• Thanasi Kokkinakis vs. Hubert Hurkacz
• Flavio Cobolli vs. Arthur Rinderknech
• Alexei Popyrin vs. Ben Shelton
• Lorenzo Sonego vs. Alejandro Tabilo