MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Yannick Sinner has ended 10-time champion Novak Djokovic’s perfect semifinals record. Australian OpenA place in a Grand Slam final for the first time on the back of Friday’s commanding win.
The 22-year-old Italian broke Djokovic’s serve in the first two sets but dropped a point in the third set to win 6-1, 6-2, 6-7 (6), 6-3. Victory. Djokovic has previously won 10 semifinals and 10 finals at Rod Laver Arena.
About an hour after the first match point, Sinner sealed his third win in four straight after losing to Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals last year.
“It gives you a better feeling when you know you can beat a player,” Sinner said. “It’s always good to have a player like that you can learn from.
“Last year I lost in the semi-finals at Wimbledon and I learned a lot from that. His faith at the end of last year certainly kept his faith. “
Djokovic in 2011
Djokovic’s bid for a record-extending 11th Australian title and 25th major title overall should await him.
In the year He has not lost a match at Melbourne Park since his fourth-round exit in 2018 and was on a 33-match winning streak in his first major of the season.
“It’s fitting in the finals. He played me completely,” Djokovic said. “Look, somehow, I’m shocked at my level – in a bad way. I wasn’t really doing much in the first couple of sets.
“Yes, I think this is the worst Grand Slam match I have ever seen. At least I remember.”
Djokovic has never seen a break point – his first in a Grand Slam match.
“That statistic speaks volumes,” Djokovic said. “First of all, he was serving really well, really, he was supporting the service very well.
“There’s a lot of negative things that I did on the court today in my game that I wasn’t really happy with in response or, you know, moves or early backs. It was all, you know, pointless.”
Sinner took the first two sets in under 1-4 in an impressive start against a player who lost just one Grand Slam match last year – the Wimbledon final against Carlos Alcaraz.
As he often does, Djokovic raised his serve percentage, cut his unforced errors and turned up the pressure in the third.
He was at 5-5 and serving at deuces when the game was interrupted and he was treated in the stands. After ambulance officers helped the man out, Djokovic held serve to save the match point at 5-6 in a tie breaker.
Djokovic won three straight points to force a fourth set, but immediately ran into trouble on his serve.
He dropped three break points in the second game from 15-40 down in the second game, but Sinner got a crucial service break in the fourth game to win five straight points from 40-0 down to take a 3-1 lead.
A continuous chant of “nole, nole, nole, nole” echoed around Rod Laver Arena from a large number of Djokovic fans cheering on their champion and creating a soccer sensation.
It helped to increase the strength of both players.
As the chair umpire served the audience for the match, Siner asked three times for silence.
Losing to Djokovic at Wimbledon marked a turning point for his opponent. After losing the first three meetings, Sinner won two of the next three – all in November – at the group level ATP Finals in Turin And in Davis Cup semi-finals.
Sinner is the only player not to have dropped a set in his last four matches and has spent nearly four hours on court in five rounds against Djokovic, who was taken three times in four rounds.
Again, the odds are stacked against the fourth generation sinner.
But he played calm and flawless tennis in the first two sets and put pressure on Djokovic’s serve in a relatively cool 21 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) and a light breeze.
Djokovic, 36, missed out on his first chance to become only the third person in history to win 11 titles at any Grand Slam event – Rafael Nadal has 14 French Open titles and Margaret Court has won 11 Australian Open women’s titles.
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