Djokovic could not find a rhythm on his returns, which are usually his strongest suit. Yet there were still tells there, for those who wanted to see them. He has won from two sets down eight times over his career, including against Sinner himself at Wimbledon in 2022. When Djokovic saved a match point deep in the third set, and then snatched the tie-break two points later, many fans must have expected another sensational comeback. He still wasn’t his true self, but even a B-grade Djokovic (as opposed to the D-grade version we had seen previously) is good enough to make life difficult. Happily for the 15,000-strong crowd, Djokovic began to snap out of his malaise in the third set. Highlight-reel shots are one thing, but the majority of tennis matches are decided by who can keep the ball in court for longer. But he had also committed 29 unforced errors to his opponent’s eight. Going into the third set, Djokovic had hit 11 winners, one more than Sinner. Yeah, not a very pleasant feeling playing this way.” “There was not much I was doing right in the first two sets. “I was shocked with my level, in a bad way,” said an apparently mystified Djokovic after his 6-1, 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 defeat. Djokovic simply donated the first two sets with a display of such ineptitude that he could have been a qualifier, rather than the most decorated man in tennis history. Sinner has therefore achieved something that Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray never managed in 11 attempts: beating Djokovic at the business end of the Australian Open.Īdmittedly, none of those great names ever received the sort of head start that Sinner did. His record in semi-finals and finals here was previously perfect: 20 from 20. It had been six years since Djokovic lost a match at Melbourne Park. Novak Djokovic bemoaned “one of the worst grand-slam matches I’ve ever played” after falling to an inspired Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open semi-finals.
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