Popyrin caused a stir at last year's tournament by defeating Novak Djokovic in the third round and had won seven of his last 10 matches against top-10 players. But on Arthur Ashe Stadium on 28/8, Sinner gave the Australian no chance of a similar upset. The world number one quickly took a 3-0 lead in the first set and then raced to straightforward set wins.

Sinner faced difficulty in two service games, one in the second set and one in the third, but saved all five break points. Popyrin, on the other hand, scored several impressive points with his powerful playing style but was fragile at crucial moments. He saved only four of nine break points, leading to heavy defeats in the last two sets by the same score of 2-6.

Sinner thanks the crowd after defeating Popyrin in the second round of the US Open on 29/8. Photo: AFP

Sinner extended his winning streak in Grand Slam tournaments on hard courts to 23. The 24-year-old also leveled his head-to-head record with Popyrin at 1-1, after losing their first encounter at the 2021 Madrid Open.

Sinner needs to perform better than his rival Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open if he wants to retain his world number one ranking. In the third round, Alcaraz faces 32nd seed Luciano Darderi, while Sinner will play 27th seed Denis Shapovalov, who is in good form after eliminating Marton Fucsovics and Valentin Royer.

There were some surprising results on day five, as seeds Karen Khachanov and Francisco Cerundolo both won the first two sets but lost in five sets to Kamil Majchrzak and Leandro Riedi, respectively. Another seed who had to play five sets was Flavio Cobolli, who defeated American Jenson Brooksby.

In the women's singles, second seed Iga Swiatek took more than two hours to defeat world number 66 Suzan Lamens, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4. Naomi Osaka easily defeated American Hailey Baptiste 6-3, 6-1, while 11th seed Karolina Muchova overcame Sorana Cirstea 7-6, 6-7, 6-4.

Nhan Dat