{"id":31045,"date":"2024-08-21T01:20:22","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T22:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=31045"},"modified":"2024-08-21T01:20:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T22:20:22","slug":"top-ranked-sinner-and-womens-no-2-sabalenka-win-titles-in-cincinnati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/21\/top-ranked-sinner-and-womens-no-2-sabalenka-win-titles-in-cincinnati\/","title":{"rendered":"Top-Ranked Sinner and Women\u2019s No. 2 Sabalenka Win Titles in Cincinnati\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sudan Events – Agencies\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Top-ranked Jannik Sinner and women\u2019s No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka earned straight-set victories in the finals of the Cincinnati Open on Monday, the first titles at the tournament for both players.<\/div>\n
Sabalenka defeated Jessica Pegula 6-3, 7-5 for her first title since the Australian Open in January.<\/div>\n
Sinner, who turned 23 on Friday, beat American Frances Tiafoe 7-6 (4), 6-2 to become the youngest Cincinnati champion since 21-year-old Andy Murray won in 2008.<\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy to be in the position where I am,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to keep going this way mentally. It\u2019s important to recover to be ready for New York. That\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/div>\n
The US Open begins on Aug. 26 in New York.<\/div>\n
Sinner and Tiafoe were both playing in their first Cincinnati finals with their previous best results being the third round.<\/div>\n
Tiafoe forced a tiebreak in the first set, but three straight errors led to a 7-6 defeat.<\/div>\n
Sinner had a 5-1 lead in the second before Tiafoe saved three match points to make it 5-2 before Sinner was able to serve out for the win.<\/div>\n
Tiafoe had a less conventional path to the final. He won the first set in the quarterfinals on Saturday before Hubert Hurkacz retired with a calf injury then saved two match points to defeat Holger Rune in three sets in the semis.<\/div>\n
An American man hasn\u2019t won the title in Cincinnati since Andy Roddick in 2006.<\/div>\n
Sabalenka moved up a spot to No. 2 in the rankings before the match, then didn\u2019t lose a set en route to her 15th WTA title. She had never gotten past the semifinals at Cincinnati, losing three times in that round.<\/div>\n
The 26-year-old Sabalenka can now be considered a favorite at the US Open. The Belarusian missed Wimbledon with a shoulder injury, then returned to the tour at Washington two weeks ago.<\/div>\n
\u201cI would say that I\u2019m really playing great tennis,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cProbably not the best tennis I can play but I\u2019m definitely getting there. Hopefully at the US Open I can reach even higher levels.\u201d<\/div>\n
Against Pegula, Sabalenka took 17 minutes to build a 4-1 lead in the first set. Pegula, who double-faulted five times, broke serve for the first time to tie the second set at 5-all, but Sabalenka won the next two games to finish off the 1-hour, 14-minute match.<\/div>\n
\u201cShe was playing at a high level and never really came down,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cWhen she\u2019s serving really well, it\u2019s tough, especially on these fast courts.\u201d<\/div>\n
The sixth-ranked Pegula had a challenging road to the final. After defending her title at Toronto, the American played two matches on Friday because of weather-related postponements and had three matches go three sets. Her time on the court exceeded Sabalenka\u2019s by more than two hours entering the final.<\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proving to myself that I can play a lot of matches and overcome a lot of challenges,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to not doing anything for a few days.\u201d<\/div>\n
Sabalenka joined top-ranked Iga Swiatek as the only players with 10 or more WTA titles since 2020. She beat Swiatek in the Cincinnati semis.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events – Agencies\u00a0 Top-ranked Jannik Sinner and women\u2019s No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka earned straight-set victories in the finals of the Cincinnati Open on Monday, the first titles at the tournament for both players. Sabalenka defeated Jessica Pegula 6-3, 7-5 for her first title since the Australian Open in January. Sinner, who turned 23 on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31046,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31045\/revisions\/31046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}