Sinner Tops Atmane, Reaches Beijing Quarterfinals

If your name isn’t Carlos Alcaraz, good luck beating Jannik Sinner on a hard court in 2025. 

2023 Beijing champion Jannik Sinner angled past France’s Terence Atmane in a rematch of the pair’s Cincinnati semifinal on Saturday evening in the Chinese Capital, 6-4 5-7 6-0, to set a quarterfinal against Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan. 

Sinner improves to 20-2 on hard courts this season, with his only two losses on the surface coming against Alcaraz at finals in Cincinnati and the US Open.

Sinner is 73-5 on hard courts since the start of 2024, with four of those losses coming to Alcaraz. It was Alcaraz who handed him his only loss in Beijing as well, last year in the final, but with the Spaniard in Tokyo this week the looming question is: can anybody else slow him down?

Sinner handled a scare from the talented southpaw, who claimed the middle set on the strength of three breaks of serve, but the Italian rebounded to take the final six games of the match as he improved to 39-5 on the year. 

“I was twice up with a break in the second set and I couldn’t use it, but this is the sport and this happens,” the 24-year-old said. “Maybe the concentration went down a little bit at times and some nerves, but I am very happy to be through to the next round.”

Siner hit 22 winners against 27 unforced errors in the match, while Atmane cracked 23 winners (including seven aces) against 37 unforced errors. 

Sinner has now won each of his last 61 matches on hard courts against players outside of the Top 10. 68th-ranked Atmane drops to 7-7 on the season. He made his Top 100 debut in August after earning two Top 10 wins to reach his first Masters semifinal at Cincinnati. 

There, Sinner defeated 7-6(4), 6-2. 

Elsewhere in Beijing, Alex de Minaur fought his way into the quarterfinals with a 6-3 3-6 7-6(2) win over Arthur Rinderknech.