Both the men’s and women’s top seeds at the 2024 US Open, Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Poland’s Iga Swiatek, made light work of their second-round matchups on Thursday afternoon in Queens to breeze into the next stage of America’s tennis major.
Sinner is in the midst of a brilliant 2024 season that could very well end with a second major. A straight-set 6-4, 6-0, 6-2 victory over American Alex Michelson was his 50th win of the season and the 30th on hard courts — headlined by his first-ever major title earlier this season at the Australian Open.
Michelson was a familiar opponent for Sinner. The two squared off just one week ago at the Cincinnati Open in the Round of 32 in which Sinner won in straight sets 6-4, 7-5 on his way to winning the tournament.
“I am very happy to get through, he is a very tough opponent,” Sinner said. “We had a match in Cincinnati one week ago, so I knew a little what to expect.”
The 23-year-old Italian simply overpowered Michelson, coaxing him into 31 unforced errors in the one-hour-and-40-minute match.
Sinner has dropped just one set in his first two matches at this year’s US Open — a major he has much higher expectations for this time around. His best finish in Queens came two years ago when he bounced in the quarterfinals by Carlos Alcaraz.
In that same year, 2022, Swiatek took the women’s crown and is one of the favorites to win it again as the top seed this year. She looked like her familiar self on Thursday, breezing past Japan’s Ena Shibihara, ranked 217th in the world, in straight sets 6-0, 6-1.
The match took just 65 minutes with Swiatek winning each of the first seven games before Shibihara held serve for a consolation prize.
Perhaps this is a result that can get the No. 1 seed back on track. After complaining about a hole in her backhand at the Summer Olympics in which she won bronze, she had some difficulties in her first-round match with Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova. Despite the straight-set win, she had to scramble to save the second set after squandering a two-game lead and then staving off triple set point in. the tiebreak.
