After storming into the Mutua Madrid Open quarterfinals and defeating Karen Khachanov 5-7, 6-3, 6-3, Jannik Sinner is still vying for his first clay-court Masters 1000 victory.

In the end, the top seed overcame worries about a persistent hip issue to defeat a strong Khachanov, ranked sixteenth, in just over two hours at Arantxa Sanchez Stadium.

With a first-ever major triumph at the Australian Open to start the season, Sinner has been the most dominant player of 2024. He carried that momentum into the hard-court swing, finishing in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open and winning the Miami Open.

Arriving at the Caja Magica as the top seed in the absence of world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, he began his clay-court campaign at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters in Monte Carlo. There, he lost a close semifinal match to the eventual champion, Stefanos Tsitsipas, but despite this setback, he has looked like the player to beat on all surfaces.

Sinner, who had not yet dropped a set going into the Round of 16, said that he was experiencing pain in his hip following his comeback from a 3-5 deficit in the second set of his match against Pavel Kotov in the third round. He speculated that this discomfort may have been caused by overdoing it in the gym.

Nevertheless, he had cause for optimism against Khachanov, as he had defeated him in their previous three encounters, including one in Australia back in January. Former world No. 8 Khachanov overcame a set down in his opening encounter against Roberto Bautista Agut to upset Flavio Cobolli on Monday by putting on a more dominant display.

After making it to the semifinals of the 2022 US Open, Khachanov has seen a resurgence in the game. In Miami last spring, he ended a 23-match losing run against players ranked in the top ten, and he has advanced to the second round in four of his previous five Grand Slam main draw events. The two-time Roland Garros quarterfinalist made a decent start to his clay-court swing with a win over good buddy Daniil Medvedev en route to the quarterfinals in Monte Carlo.

Khachanov put pressure on return from the start when facing Sinner in the Masters 1000 quarterfinal of the season. He led 0-40 in the third game and eventually scored the only break of the set at 5-5, serving the set out to love.

In the first set of the second set, Sinner completely turned the tables on Khachanov. He earned and converted his first break point of the match and dropped just five games on his own service to tie the score at one set apiece.

Khachanov took the lead early in the final by manipulating Sinner’s serve to give himself an early break opportunity. However, the Italian held onto it and started to pressure Khachanov’s service, defeating the Russian to earn the opening break of the decisive set.

By the end of the match, Sinner was well in control and had broken Khachanov twice to secure a meeting in the round of eight with either Félix Auger-Aliassime or No. 5 seed Casper Ruud, who just won his first ATP 500 match in Barcelona.