Stefanos Tsitsipas cruises to early win at Barcelona Open

BARCELONA, Spain — Stefanos Tsitsipas opened his Barcelona Open campaign with a comfortable 6-4, 6-2 win over Pedro Cachin on Wednesday.

Tsitsipas did not face a break point and converted all three of his own to defeat the 69th-ranked Cachin, who is from Argentina.

“It’s one of those matches I was able to figure out from early on, keep up with the pace, and anything that was being thrown at me I was reacting to it very positively and being very smooth on the court,” the second-seeded Greek player said.

Tsitsipas will next face Denis Shapovalov, who earlier defeated Jozef Kovalik 6-4, 6-3.

Tsitsipas was a finalist in Barcelona in 2018 and 2021, losing both times to Rafael Nadal.

“Obviously, good memories are in the back of my head,” he said. “It’s two finals, but still you keep the positives instead of sticking too much to what went wrong.”

Fourth-seeded Jannik Sinner got past Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 6-4 for his 25th tour-level win this year.

Sinner reached the semifinals in Indian Wells and the final in Miami, and he also made it to the last four in Monte Carlo to begin his clay-court season.

“I tried to stay quite aggressive, made a couple of unforced errors, but I have to remind myself that this is the first round for me,” the 21-year-old Sinner said. “I tried to stay calm and obviously try in the best way in important moments.”

The eighth-ranked Italian player will next face Yoshihito Nishioka, who defeated David Goffin 6-1, 7-5.

Sixth-seeded Karen Khachanov defeated Nicolas Jarry 6-4, 6-4, while seventh-seeded Cameron Norrie of Great Britain advanced past qualifier Pavel Kotov 6-1, 6-2. Eighth-seeded Alex de Minaur of Australia beat Alexander Shevchenko 6-0, 6-1.