Sinner Sweeps 20th Straight Win for Madrid Quarterfinal Return

By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Photo credit: BNP Paribas Open Facebook

Early wake-up calls don’t slow Jannik Sinner’s roll.

In a rare 11 a.m. start time, Sinner served with command pulling the plug on Cameron Norrie 6-2, 7-5 to score his 20th straight win and return to the Mutua Madrid Open quarterfinals for the second time in the last three years.

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World No. 1 Sinner stretched his ATP Masters 1000 winning streak to 25 matches after capturing Masters 1000 championships in Paris, Indian Wells, Miami and Monte-Carlo.

Bidding to become the first man to capture five consecutive ATP Masters 1000 championships, Sinner played with clarity and discipline.

Today, Sinner improved to 27-2 on the season and joined Novak Djokovic (2011 and 2015) as the second man in history to win his first 20 ATP Masters 1000 matches of the season.

“Quite unusual [start time] for me,” Sinner said afterward. “I don’t know the last time I played at 11. For me, it doesn’t matter what time, I try to do my best…

“From my side it was a good performance today.”

Setting the tone on serve, Sinner served 62 percent, pumped eight aces against one double fault and dropped just six points on first serve in returning to the Mutua Madrid Open quarterfinals.

The 24year-old Italian broke for 2-1 then used the serve and volley to help consolidate for 3-1. Norrie tried to mix it up with the drop shot, some sharp angles and serve-and-volley of us own.

Those tactics did not faze Sinner who ripped deep drives to keep the Briton pinned behind the baseline. Sinner broke again for 4-1, part of a four-game surge, before serving out the opening set at 15.

“We practiced in the last tournament, we both kind of knew what to expect,” Sinner said of his maiden meeting with Norrie. “I feel like I was serving quite well today in important moments. It’s very tough to get the right feedback, sometimes you feel you are not playing your best.

“I’m very happy to to be in the quarters again. It’s a tournament I haven’t played a lot, so it means a lot to me and I’m happy to be through in two sets.”

The second set was a tougher test. Sinner broke for 3-2, but Norrie broke right back at love to level after six games.

Deadlocked at 5-all, Norrie saved two break points, but missed a couple of forehands as Sinner broke for 6-5.

A streaking Sinner drew one final forehand error to close in one hour, 26 minutes.

Wimbledon winner Sinner will play either 19-year-old Spanish wild card Rafael Jodar or Vit Kopriva for a semifinal spot. Sinner said he watched Jodar’s electric win over Brazilian phenom Joao Fonseca and would like to face the man from Madrid ahead of a potential meeting in Rome or Paris.

“For me also personally, always pretending that he wins tomorrow, it would be good if I face him before
bigger tournaments coming up, Rome and then Roland Garros,” Sinner said. “Here are very unique conditions. He is from Madrid, no, so he is very used to these conditions here.

“But at the same time I can have good, good feedback hopefully for bigger tournaments coming up.
So very exciting new player. Big, big talent. So let’s see what’s coming. At the same time, he still needs to win one match today. I know every match is difficult. Kopriva won against very, very tough players, including also Rublev. So, tough player, but in any case I’ll try to be as ready as possible.”



Richard Pagliaro is Tennis Now Managing Editor. He is a graduate of New York University and has covered pro tennis for more than 35 years. Richard was tennis columnist for Gannett Newspapers in NY, served as Managing Editor for TennisWeek.com and worked as a writer/editor for Tennis.com. He has been TennisNow.com managing editor since 2010.

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