Sinner survives Struff's clutch serving to snatch three-set win

In the face of a brilliant serving display from Jan-Lennard Struff, Jannik Sinner held firm Friday to advance to the Terra Wortmann Open semi-finals. Struff hit 18 aces and saved 16 of 18 break points — including all 11 in the second and third sets — but could not pull off the upset against the new No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings.

The Italian's 6-2, 6-7(1), 7-6(3) result was his third consecutive three-set win in Halle, after earlier victories against Tallon Griekspoor and Fabian Marozsan. Sinner lost a tie-break in each of the three matches.

"It was a very tough match," Sinner said. "I had chances in the second, had chances in the third, but couldn't use them. It was 0/40 [in the first game of the third set]. I just try to accept these kind of challenges. Obviously it has been very tough, also mentally. I'm very pleased to be in the next round, I played a lot yesterday, I played a lot also today — two and a half hours on grass, it's a long time. I'll try to recover for tomorrow and hopefully show some good tennis."

Playing in his first event as World No. 1, Sinner has yet to meet a seeded opponent. That trend will continue in Saturday's semis, when he takes on Zhang Zhizhen.

Sinner is bidding to become the eighth man in PIF ATP Rankings history to win the title in his first event as No. 1, and the first to do it since Andy Murray at the 2016 Nitto ATP Finals.

No dive today 😅🦊@janniksin with ANOTHER sliding success in Halle@ATPHalle | #TerraWortmannOpen pic.twitter.com/Ao9wfWKeJi

— ATP Tour (@atptour) June 21, 2024

Against Struff, the Italian found early success by attacking his opponent's backhand, breaking twice in the opening set. But Struff lifted his aggression in the second, particularly on his forehand, and stepped in on Sinner's second serve to fight back. Sinner won 67 per cent of his second-serve points in the first set followed by just 36 per cent in the second set, according to Infosys ATP Stats.

Two Sinner double faults at 2-2 in the third set helped Struff create his first break point as the match clock struck two hours, but the Italian fought it off and the set moved quickly toward a tie-break. The third-set tie-break was Struff's 10th decisive tie-break of 2024 (5-5, including his Halle opener) and Sinner's first.

The victory improved Sinner to 3-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head against Struff, whom he beat earlier this season in Indian Wells and Monte-Carlo. The Italian is through to his second tour-level semi-final on grass (Wimbledon 2023). He is on a 34-match winning streak vs. players ranked outside Top 20 in the PIF ATP Rankings.

Zhang relied on late heroics to edge Christopher Eubanks in Friday's final match. The Chinese star trailed 2-5 in the third set but rattled off five consecutive games to secure a 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 victory.

By reaching his second tour-level semi-final (Hamburg 2023), Zhang has moved up nine places to No. 33 this week in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, setting himself up for a new career high. His fightback against Eubanks backed up the biggest win of his career by PIF ATP Ranking, an upset of World No. 5 Daniil Medvedev on Wednesday in a third-set tie-break.