It was highly anticipated, but not unpredictable: Sinner was heavenly, the Demon exorcised

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After his previous match against Holger Rune, Sinner had alluded to an unspecified illness that had disrupted his preparation. In the prelude to this one, a rumour swept Melbourne Park that he had pneumonia. It was a misprint. He had pneumatics.

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One detail speaks for all this night. In the past year, de Minaur has established himself as one of the best return-of-serves in the game. This night, he failed to win even a point against Sinner’s serve for four consecutive games at the heart of the match. In all, he won 10 points on Sinner’s serve, total.

De Minaur did try things. Early in the second set, he began to stand so far back to return serve that Sinner must have thought of emailing it to him. What did Sinner do? Beat him with a feathery drop shot, that’s what. Forced to push, de Minaur did, and like so many who push, he toppled.

The motif of de Minaur’s career has been to hang in there, work hard and improve by millimetres. It’s brought him this far, but he must wonder if the tortoise route is really the way to catch hares. He’s only 25, but Sinner is 23 and Carlos Alcaraz 21.

The occasion was subdued and anti-climactic. Sinner is emotionless on court, and de Minaur is not one to manufacture disruptions. He gave the crowd nothing to latch onto, and Sinner gave them nothing to offend them, and so the night passed mildly away. One or two feeble “oi, oi, oi” chants rang out dully. Is there any lamer chant in world sport? Actually, there is. It’s “let’s go {name player}, let’s go.”

The match was over so quickly that Nine’s Jim Courier admitted on court he was under instructions to draw out the post-match interview. Sinner was having none of it. He was polite and gracious. He was grateful to the crowd for being fair. He was glad to be young and able to recover quickly from ill health.

But he did not think of himself as an entertainer, he said in a voice as flat as his backhand pass. For the second time on the night, he wrapped it up in a hurry.

Watch the Australian Open live & free on the 9Network & 9Now. Stan Sport is the only place to watch every match ad-free, live & on demand.

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