Alexander Zverev makes mockery of Six Kings Slam prize money in one-sided defeat

Jannik Sinner and Taylor Fritz raced through to the semi-finals as the opening day of the Six Kings Slam exhibition fell flat in Saudi Arabia. Sinner thrashed Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2 6-3 to book a semi-final with Novak Djokovic after Fritz required just 59 minutes to beat Alexander Zverev and set up a clash with Carlos Alcaraz on Thursday.

Both Tsitsipas and Zverev will head home from the six-player exhibition having received a reported $1.5m for turning up. The overall champion will win an additional $4.5, making the three-day event the biggest prize fund of the tennis season. Zverev earned roughly $250,000 more for his 59-minute defeat to Fritz than he did for finishing runner-up at the Australian Open in January, at a rate of around $25,000 per minute.

Zverev’s performance was particularly disappointing, although the German appeared to be struggling with a right shoulder injury throughout the match. The World No 3 was underpowered and repeatedly rolled serves into the middle of the service box that were 20kmph slower than his season average. Fritz has now won seven consecutive matches against Zverev - but this won’t count on the official head-to-head records - and did not need to get out of second gear to win 6-4 6-3 in front of a muted crowd in Riyadh.

Defending champion Sinner was making his first appearance since retiring from his third-round match in Shanghai and was relentless in opening up a 5-0 lead against Tsitsipas in the other quarter-final, repeatedly targeting the Greek’s one-handed backhand with vicious blows from his forehand.

Tsitsipas has a 6-3 winning record against Sinner, but the match-up is no longer a good one for the former World No 3. Tsitsipas emerged with some credit by keeping Sinner’s margin of victory to the loss of just five games, but it was another one-sided victory that was over after 76 minutes.

“We played already many times, of course,” Sinner said. “By the time we become better players and we know each other's game a little bit more, so I knew a little bit also tactically how to prepare for the match. I just tried to stay quite aggressive, especially on the return games. I felt like I was serving very well in the important moments.”

Sinner will go for a seventh consecutive victory against the 24-time grand slam champion Djokovic, if you include their meeting in last year’s Six King semi-finals. Sinner has won both matches against the 38-year-old this season, in the French Open and Wimbledon semi-finals.

“It’s a huge honour to play again, against a legend like Novak,” Sinner said. “It's great to have him still here playing in the highest level of our sport. He’s a great role model. He's still hungry to win big titles and and that's why he still keeps playing. Hopefully it's going to be interesting tomorrow.”

Sinner, meanwhile, questioned the “unusual” court surface in Riyadh, which was extremely bouncy on kick-serves but was flat and slow during some rallies. “It's a very unusual indoor court.,” Sinner said. “It is a very interesting situation we have to deal with here on the court because it's quite bouncy, with new balls it's quite fast and it slows down with with used balls.”