Consistency personified so far this season, Jannik Sinner held his nerve to down Diego Schwartzman on Wednesday at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell for his 25th tour-level win of 2023.
The fourth-seeded Italian outlasted a typically resilient Schwartzman, who dug particularly deep in a topsy-turvy second set, on Pista Rafa Nadal. After dominating the opening set, Sinner clinched four of the seven breaks of serve in the second to wrap a one-hour, 40-minute victory in the second-round clash at the ATP 500.
“I think I started very well, especially in return games,” said Sinner. “I tried to stay quite aggressive, made a couple of unforced errors, but I have to remind myself that this is the first round for me. I tried to stay calm and obviously try in the best way in important moments.
“Now the main focus is to recover for tomorrow, and I restart tomorrow hopefully with better feelings than today. Diego is a very tough player to play against and I am very happy.”
After reaching the semi-finals in Indian Wells and the championship match in Miami in March, Sinner made an impressive start to his year on clay last week with a semi-final run at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. The 21-year-old hopes to back that showing up with a deep run in Barcelona, where he reached the semi-finals on event debut in 2021. He is not concerned about his hectic recent schedule having any negative impact.
“I think it’s a good problem to have,” said Sinner. “I came here with a positive mindset. I knew that the first round was going to be a tough one, so I also tried to adapt myself to the conditions and the court. Obviously it’s very nice [with] the crowd here.”
Sinner will face Yoshihito Nishioka in the third round as he seeks his sixth quarter-final appearance in eight tour-level tournaments this year. The Japanese 16th seed Nishioka earlier defeated David Goffin 6-1, 7-5.
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In the opening match of the day on Pista Rafa Nadal, Grigor Dimitrov was a 6-3, 6-1 winner against Emilio Gomez. The Bulgarian delivered a commanding display against the World No. 120 Gomez, whose father, Andres, won the Barcelona title in 1989 and 1990.
Dimitrov, whose best result this season is a semi-final run in Rotterdam, converted five of his six break points to improve to 10-7 for the 2023 season.
Alex de Minaur will be Dimitrov’s third-round opponent at the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona-1899. The Australian, who partially grew up and still regularly trains just along the coast in Alicante, routed Alexander Shevchenko 6-0, 6-1 to reach the third round for the third time in three appearances in Barcelona.
Two other seeded players, Karen Khachanov and Francisco Cerundolo, also advanced to the third round. The sixth-seeded Khachanov, semi-finalist at the Australian Open and in Miami, defeated Nicolas Jarry 6-4, 6-4. He next takes on 12th seed Daniel Evans or qualifier Matteo Arnaldi.
Argentina’s Cerundolo needed just 72 minutes to dispatch Francesco Passaro 6-2, 6-2. The 15th seed will play third seed Casper Ruud in the third round.