Sinner marches on at Roland-Garros, defeats Moutet in four

Italian Jannik Sinner, the second seed, moved into quarter-finals of Roland-Garros by winning against Frenchman Corentin Moutet 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 in Paris on Sunday evening.

In doing so, Sinner becomes the first Italian to make the quarter-finals or better at the Australian Open and Roland-Garros in the same season.

It was a spirited attempt at unseating the world No 2 by Moutet. The Frenchman had the Phillipe-Chatrier crowd behind him, and began the match at a ferocious pace.

Sinner admitted that it took him some time to get accustomed to the world No 79’s unorthodox style, saying after the match that, “He plays different than most of the opponents. He’s also a leftie, you don’t play so many times against left-handers.”

“I think it was very tough for me. He played very, very well the first set. I had some chances, but he played much better than me. I had to adjust a little bit.”

Moutet starts fast, Sinner levels out

As much as Moutet made a great start to the match, winning the first set 6-2, this clash was always going to be decided by Sinner’s superior play from the baseline.

The Italian found his range, and became better and better across the course of the match.

While the No 2 seed made 14 unforced errors in the opening set, across the next three sets he made just 17. Add to this his ever-increasing tally of winners (40 for the match) and domination of the return of serve (eight breaks of serve, 71 percent of Moutet’s second serves won), and Sinner quickly pulled away from his opponent.

Whenever Moutet threatened to surge back into the match, with flashes of brilliance and panache, Sinner remained steady, giving the Frenchman no easy points. The end result was a routine four-set win, and a spot in the quarter-finals here in Paris for the second time.

Sinner will face Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, the No 10 seed, next.

The 22-year-old Italian defeated American Christopher Eubanks (6-3, 6-3, 6-4), French wildcard Richard Gasquet (6-4, 6-2, 6-4) and Russian Pavel Kotov (6-4, 6-4, 6-4) earlier in the tournament.

In the previous rounds of the Roland-Garros 2024, Moutet, ranked No 79, won against Chilean Nicolas Jarry, the No 16 seed (6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-0), Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko (6-4, 6-2, 0-6, 6-3) and Austrian Sebastian Ofner (3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-1).

Paris (Grand Slam), other last 16 results (Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 53.478.000, most recent results first):

• Alexander Zverev vs. Holger Rune
• Taylor Fritz vs. Casper Ruud
• Novak Djokovic vs. Francisco Cerundolo
• Alex De Minaur vs. Daniil Medvedev
• Grigor Dimitrov beat Hubert Hurkacz (8): 7-6 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (3)
• Carlos Alcaraz (3) beat Felix Auger-Aliassime (21): 6-3, 6-3, 6-1
• Stefanos Tsitsipas (9) beat Matteo Arnaldi: 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-2