The Australian Open defending champion Jannik Sinner marched on to the semifinals with a commanding straight-set win against local lad Alex de Minaur at the Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday. The Italian secured a dominant  6-3, 6-2, 6-1 win against the Australian to make it to the last four of the tournament.

Sinner was able to hit the ground running, breaking his opponent early in the opening set. The World No.1 kept the pressure on the number eight seed and didn’t let him settle as he kept playing at a high level.

Alex had no answers to Sinner’s onslaught and suffered his 10th loss against the Italian. The Australian is yet to beat the Italian on the tour.

“I feel like today I was feeling everything,” said Sinner, who will take on Ben Shelton in the semi-finals, in his on-court interview. “On days like this, when you break quite early in each set, it’s a little bit easier. He’s a tough competitor and an amazing player… We know each other quite well now. We’ve played each other so many times and we try to understand each others games, and try to prepare ourselves in the best possible way.

“These kinds of matches, they can go quickly, but also they can change very fast if I go down with my level a little bit and he takes opportunities. I’m very happy about my performance today.”

Meanwhile, Sinner had to take a medical timeout against Holger Rune in the fourth round as he struggled with illness. However, he revealed that he felt comfortable on Tuesday. 

“Yesterday was a very easy day,” said Sinner, when asked how he had overcome the illness which affected him against Rune. “I played just half an hour or 40 minutes with my coaches. They gave me a good rhythm. Talking about general physicality, especially when you are young, you recover very fast. I really like to sleep, so I just tried to rest in the best possible way and not do so many things. I just tried to relax, recover and to get ready for the quarter-final.”

Jannik Sinner will face Ben Shelton in the semifinals of the Happy Slam on Friday.