The German Jan-Lennard Struff skipped the 96 places that separate him from the Norwegian Casper Ruud in the ATP ranking and eliminated the fourth player in the world in the round of 16 of the Monte Carlo tennis tournament 6-1, 7-6 (6 ).
Struff, coming from the previous phase, had already left clues about his good moment by defeating the Spanish Albert Ramos in the first round and the Australian Alex de Miñaur (19 ATP) in the second without losing a set. He did the same against Ruud, winner in Estoril last week of his first title of the year but today unable to display his game against Struff's courage.
The Norwegian, a true specialist on clay, a surface that has given him nine of the ten tournaments on his record, lost serve twice in the opening round and another two in the second, although at the end of it he had a splendid reaction that allowed him to save two match points, recover both services and go from 5-2 to 6-6.
In the tiebreaker he solved a new match point against with a great serve, but the next time he subtracted out and gave the giant from Warstein (1.93 m) the victory.
At 30 years old, it is the second time that Struff has reached the quarterfinals of a Masters 1,000 category tournament, after doing so in 2020 in Cincinnati. His next rival will be the Russian Andrey Rublev, fifth seeded in the tournament.
The Greek Stefanos Tsitsipás, second seeded in the Monte Carlo tournament, current champion and third tennis player in the world, was too demanding a rival for the Chilean Nicolás Jarry, who fell in the round of 16 6-3, 6-4, after an hour and a half party. The Hellenic player was a rock, with only four unforced errors in the entire match, three in the first set and one in the second.
For his part, the Italian Jannik Sinner overcame a bad first set and a match point down in the second and amended his game in time to beat the Polish Hubert Hurkacz 3-6, 7-6 (6) and 6 -1 and qualify for the quarterfinals of the Monte Carlo Masters 1,000, in which he can meet the Serbian Novak Djokovic. The Danish Holger Rune also qualified this Thursday for the quarterfinals, this one without playing, due to the withdrawal of the Italian Matteo Berrettini.
