The National Times - Sinner's bid to reach Italian Open final held up by Roman rain

Hunting a 33rd straight win in the ATP's top-ranked tournaments, Sinner was leading 6-2, 5-7, 4-2 when organisers called a halt to play following the second downpour of the day.

Just before 11.00pm local time, over an hour after played was initially stopped, it was decided to postpone the end of the contest to Saturday, when Coco Gauff will contest the women's final against Elina Svitolina.

The rain came just as Sinner looked to have broken the back of battling Medvedev, who had given the Italian by far his toughest test of the tournament.

Medvedev looked like being blown away when Sinner rattled off the first four games before taking the first set in just 33 minutes.

But any idea that another massacre was on the cards went away when Medvedev won the first three games of the second set and began to get his racket to nearly everything Sinner, who began to show serious signs of tiredness, threw at him.

Sinner drew level in the set but repeatedly had to lean on his racket between points and after winning game six was visibly out of breath in his seat, looking out on his feet as he conceded the second set.

But Medvedev started to make mistakes of his own, hitting two consecutive double faults in giving up his serve in game three of the third set, as Sinner took control before the rain stopped play.

Sinner is still favourite to become the first Italian to win the Rome title in five decades, ahead of a potential career Grand Slam at the French Open.

- Ruud rolls into final -

Should he get to the final he will have to get past Ruud, who reached his first title decider since winning in Stockholm in October last year by dismantling Luciano Darderi 6-1, 6-1, another match interrupted by heavy rain.

Ruud, a specialist on clay, dealt with flamboyant Darderi with the minimum of fuss, even with a downpour that forced him to wait nearly two hours to restart a match he was already winning easily.

The Norwegian hasn't won a single set in any of his four matches with Sinner and was destroyed 6-0, 6-1 by him in the last eight last year in one of the most one-sided matches ever seen at the Foro Italico.

"It will be a tough match no matter who it is," said Ruud after his match.

"If it's Jannik it will be another test for me and hopefully I can get some sort of revenge from from last time we played."

When play was stopped Ruud was 4-1 up and at advantage in game six of the first set, which he immediately won after the restart on centre court in Rome.

Not including the rain interruption Ruud took little more than an hour to see off Darderi to win a tour-leading 140th match on clay since the start of 2020, in which time he has won more tournaments on the surface than any other ATP player.

T.Bailey--TNT