Top seeds Sinner, Swiatek move into men's and women's 3rd round of U.S. Open

Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek flashed their No. 1 form on Thursday with powerful performances that moved them into the third round of the U.S. Open.

Sinner downed Alex Michelsen 6-4, 6-0, 6-2 in one hour 39 minutes.

Sinner dropped the first set in his opening match in New York but didn't encounter much trouble facing his second straight American on Arthur Ashe Stadium. The Italian earned his 50th victory of the season, including his ATP Tour-leading 30th on hard courts.

Later, Swiatek raced by Japanese qualifier Ena Shibahara 6-0, 6-1, winning the first set in just 23 minutes and finishing off the match in 65. It took the 2022 U.S. Open champion longer than that to play the second set alone in her first-round match, when she needed a tiebreaker that she eventually closed out in 72 minutes.

"I just felt the rhythm was much better," Swiatek said. "I was a bit tense in my last match, so today I just wanted to focus on the right things."

Meanwhile, Canada's Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand's Erin Routliffe opened their U.S. Open women's doubles title defence Thursday with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Canada's Leylah Fernandez and Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan.

Dabrowski, from Ottawa, and Routliffe will play American Catherine Harrison and Poland's Alicja Rosolska in the second round.

In men's singles, Montreal qualifier Gabriel Diallo was scheduled to meet 24th-seeded Arthur Fils of France later Thursday in second-round play.

Dabrowski won mixed doubles bronze at the Paris Olympics earlier this month with Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Sinner beat Michelsen for the second time this month, having also won a second-round match in Cincinnati shortly before it was revealed he tested positive twice for an anabolic steroid in March.