Four on the Floor: Men’s Semifinal Preview

IS A ‘SINCARAZ’ FINAL IN THE MAKING IN CINCY?

By Richard Osborn

[1] JANNIK SINNER (ITA) VS. [Q] TERENCE ATMANE (FRA)
NOT BEFORE 3 P.M. | P&G CENTER COURT

To consider Terence Atmane’s run to the Cincinnati Open semifinals is to imagine the impossible, at least what we once deemed undoable. Just consider the 23-year-old Frenchman’s year: In March, he was in danger of falling outside the Top 200 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Outside of a pair of low-level ATP Challenger Tour titles in Busan and Guangzhou, the lefthander has spent much of 2025 merely trying to string a few wins together. In his own words, the confessed Pokémon/Fortnite/Minecraft fanatic came here just hoping to get a few matches in on the American hard courts leading into the season’s last Grand Slam, the US Open.

He’s got that and more, and we’re all the better for it. If you like Cinderella stories, this one’s a doozy. All Atmane has done is upend Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka, 15th seed Flavio Cobolli, #NextGenATP star Joao Fonseca, fourth seed Taylor Fritz and seventh seed Holger Rune in the main draw, at No. 136 the lowest ranked player to earn multiple Top-10 wins at the same event since No. 152 Borna Coric earned three en route to the 2022 Cincinnati Open title. He’s catapulted himself to No. 69 in the live rankings, and could go further. Atmane, who’s endeared himself to Cincinnatians by flashing Reds and Bengals gear, says these are “the best days of my life.”

But the man they call ‘The Magician’ (he loves card tricks and other sleights of hand) is in the big time now, matched up against world No. 1 and defending champion Jannik Sinner in his first-ever Masters 1000 semifinal. To pull off another Top-10 shocker, he’ll have to tap into the kind of go-for- broke, go-for-the-lines approach that has brought him so much success at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. Sinner, the reigning US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon champ, has separated himself from the pack along with ‘Sincaraz’ counterpart Carlos Alcaraz. Few have been able to match their level the past two years. But who knows? As Mr. Atmane has reminded us this week, the unreachable is sometimes within reach when you believe in yourself.

“I don’t want to predict anything, because I think Jannik is the most incredible player that we have pretty much ever seen in our entire lifetime,” said Atmane in a chat with host Prakash Amritraj on the Tennis Channel set. “It’s going to be very interesting to be able to play someone like him, to play someone that is bringing so many crazy things to the tennis world. It’s going to be a new challenge for me. I will try to do my thing once again. It doesn’t matter, the ranking. I’m very happy and very proud to be able to share the court with Jannik.”

[2] CARLOS ALCARAZ (ESP) VS. [3] ALEXANDER ZVEREV (GER)
SATURDAY, NOT BEFORE 6 P.M. | P&G CENTER COURT

Taking a pink Sharpie to the courtside camera lens after turning back an inspired challenge from Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, Carlos Alcaraz scrawled the Spanish phrase “maxima potencia”, meaning “maximum power” in English. It’s what the second seed summoned when it mattered most on Friday, upping his ATP Masters 1000-level winning streak to 15 matches after titles in Monte Carlo and Rome. The Spaniard now leads the pack with a tour-best 52 match wins and five titles on the season, and is on a 37-2 run since the beginning of April.

The five-time Grand Slam champion’s triumph sets a No. 2 vs. No. 3 showdown with German Alexander Zverev, a 6-2, 6-2 winner over American Ben Shelton. Zverev, 28, holds a slight 6-5 advantage in the career head-to-heads. Despite mostly smooth sailing in the one-hour, 17-minute victory, Zverev says he was under the weather in the latter stages of the match.

“Right now, I’m not feeling too great,” he said. “I have a day to get fresh again and, hopefully, be 100 percent. I’m not sure what happened. I came out today and probably felt the best I did in a few months, feeling the ball incredibly well from both sides. At the end of the third set, I started feeling not so great, and it got progressively worse. But I’m in the semifinals, and I’m going to do everything I can to reset for tomorrow and give it a shot.”

Zverev knows what it takes to win on these courts. After a futile start (he lost his first six main-draw matches here), he found his footing in Ohio in 2021, when he went all the way to the title.