Two things that stood out in Jannik Sinner’s 3R win over Sebastian Baez at Shanghai Masters

Sixth seed Jannik Sinner of Italy beat 25th seed Sebastian Baez of Argentina 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the third round of the Shanghai Masters on Sunday, October 8. The match lasted for nearly two and a half hours, as the 21-year-old Italian scraped through.

Sinner will take on 19th seed Ben Shelton of the United States in the round of 16 on Tuesday. The Italian will be the favourite to win that match as well, though the young American remains a dangerous opponent.

On that note, let us take a look at two things that stood out in the match:

#1. Baez ruled with his down-the-line forehand in the first set:

The diminutive Argentine came up with a robust performance in the first set. There were a lot of crosscourt forehand exchanges between the two players, but Baez managed to pull the trigger successfully by going down-the-line from the deuce court with his forehand.

He hit quite a few winners that way in the first set. Sinner, meanwhile, was guilty of over-committing with his forehand and hit a few of his shots long. Baez broke Sinner im the fourth game of the set to take a 3-1 lead and then held his serve to extend it. He then maintained the lead to close out the first set.

#2. Sinner played the angles very well in the last two sets:

Sinner was unfazed by the reversal in the first set. He made a breezy start to the second set, racing to a 3-0 lead by breaking the Argentine early. If Baez dominated with his down-the-line forehand in the first set, Sinner ruled with his crosscourt forehand from the second set onwards.

The tactic of playing the angled shots worked frequently for Sinner, as it meant that the diminutive Argentine had to cover more ground across the baseline. The latter found it considerably difficult as Sinner built on his lead in the second set to win it convincingly.

Sinner continued his dominance in the third set as well, as he took a 2-0 lead and then broke Baez again. The Italian then had no problem in serving the match out, thereby ending the Argentine's resistance.

Sinner won 82% of the points on his first serve in the match, while Baez managed 69%. In the end, it proved to be the decisive difference between the two players.