Djokovic takes Sinner’s soul, moves to Wimbledon finals

Novak Djokovic is into his 35th Grand Slam final after defeating Jannik Sinner 6-3 6-4 7-6(4) in his Wimbledon semifinal on Friday. The score doesn’t really imply how close the match truly was. Djokovic struggled to get many first-serves in, even though he finished with 11 aces. He had zero double faults but while he had 64 first-serve points, he had 47 second-serve points.

A large reason why Sinner fell behind was by his own hand. Or should I say, his forehand? Sinner had 32 unforced errors on his groundstrokes compared to Djokovic’s 21. Sinner failed to capitalize early when he had potential chances to break Djokovic or to hold serve. Sinner was broken twice in the first set and once in the second set but he was never able to break Djokovic.

Djoko will likely need to have a much better first serve when he plays the winner of the other semifinal, Daniil Medvedev or Carlos Alcaraz. Sinner struck the ball cleanly quite a bit and got Djoko moving side to side many times, but seldom had a shot that would put away the seven-time Wimbledon champion.

Novak Djokovic defeats Jannik Sinner and moves on to final at Wimbledon

As odd as it sounds, Sinner should feel pretty good about his future at the tournament. Except for a few major points, which Djokovic almost always seems to win against anyone he plays at a Grand Slam, Sinner could have won in four sets. He even led 3-0 in the third-set tie-break before Djoko won 7 of the last 8 points.

Djoko hasn’t lost on Wimbledon’s center court since 2013. He needs to play a bit better than he has over the last three matches to overcome either Medvedev or Alcaraz. But the showdown with Alcaraz is likely the one most want to see. It would be one versus two at Wimbledon, one versus two in the ATP ranking (and the battle for number one), and, as good as Alcaraz is and at such a young age, it could be a battle of one and two for who has the most Grand Slams at the ends of their careers.