Indian Wells: Sinner shines, Murray falls in second round

Jannik Sinner crushed Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-3, 6-0 to reach the third round of Indian Wells and extend his winning streak this season to 13 matches, while Andy Murray fell to Andrey Rublev 7-6(3), 6-1.

Sizzling Sinner stayed hot on centre court under sunny but breezy skies in the California desert, fighting off a break point at 2-2 in the opening set with a forehand winner and breaking serve for a 5-3 advantage.

After capturing the first set the Australian Open champion never looked back, losing just five points across the second set to book a third-round meeting with either 25th seed Jan-Lennard Struff or Croatian Borna Coric.

Despite winning 26 of his past 27 matches, Sinner insisted he is not invincible.

“I’m not unbeatable, I’m just well-prepared,” he told reporters.

Andy Murray walks off court dejected after his straight sets defeat against Andrey Rublev.
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“I worked really hard to be in this position. Obviously it’s a position you dream of because winning a Grand Slam, that’s everyone’s dream, but you travel here, the conditions are different and then you have to find a way somehow.”

Rublev piled up the errors in the opening set against the veteran Scot player and was forced to save four set points while his opponent enjoyed the support of the crowd on Stadium 2.

But the Russian cleaned up his game and found his range with the forehand to roll through the second set and book a meeting with either American wild card Brandon Nakashima or Czech 32nd seed Jiri Lehecka in the third round.

“He had a lot of chances in the first set and I was lucky to win. Had I lost it, it would have been really, really tough,” Rublev said.

“After the first set, I felt more confident and I knew that it would be even tougher for Andy to keep up his consistency,” he added.