Jannik Sinner opened his Madrid campaign with a 6-2 first-set win over Moller, taking control early and breaking for a 5-1 lead after a backhand return on the third break point. Moller then asked for a physiotherapist because of a muscular problem in the abdominal area, and the set closed out at 6-2 as Sinner kept pressing.
The result extended Sinner’s run to 18 consecutive wins on the tour after his victory over Bonzi, a match that gave him his 23rd Masters 1000 win. He arrived in Madrid as the number 1 seed trying to lift the title there for the first time, after three previous Madrid editions never took him beyond the quarterfinals. Last year he reached that stage before retiring with a hip problem, and this time the draw again points to a steep route: the winner of Norrie and Tirante in the round of 16, then possible quarterfinal meetings with Fonseca, Jodar or Rinderknech, and a semifinal that could bring an Italian derby with Musetti.
Madrid is the next stop in a Masters stretch that has already brought titles in Paris, Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo, and Sinner is chasing a fifth straight Masters 1000 crown. That would keep him close to the sort of run that has defined the category, though Djokovic’s 31 straight Masters wins in 2011 still stands as the longest streak in the event’s history. On the other side of the draw, Zverev is the number 2 seed with Alcaraz absent, leaving Sinner as the clear headliner of a bracket that is beginning to thin out.
The match was settled quickly enough to confirm the shape of Sinner’s week, and the harder tests are still ahead. If he keeps moving through the bottom half the way he did against Moller, Madrid may finally be the tournament where the top seed breaks through.