Jannik Sinner beats Novak Djokovic to set up French Open final against Carlos Alcaraz

New York Times

06-06-2025

ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — Friday night at the French Open, Novak Djokovic played a level of tennis that few people on this planet will ever reach, and Jannik Sinner still beat him in straight sets.
With his unmatched precision, and his ability to turn defense into offense with a snap of his hips and a flick of his wrists, Sinner beat Djokovic 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(3) in a match that was tight, nervy and at times physically wrenching. It was also an exhibition of baseline tennis, a barrage of changes in angle, redirections of pace and sliding lateral movement, from the man who redefined those things in the 2010s and the man who has remade them once more.
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Ultimately, it solidified the men's tennis order of the moment. Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who will meet in Sunday's final, are just a couple levels better than everyone else. They hit harder. They run faster. They have more magic in their hands. They see a ball streaming over the net that would make everyone else feel hopeless, and they sense an opportunity, not just to win a point but to snuff out any thought that the impossible might be beyond their reach.
Djokovic used every ounce of his determination, power, creativity and experience to nudge Sinner out of his comfort zone. But for one game late in the second set, when Djokovic got his first break points against him in nearly seven full sets of tennis and sneaked within shouting distance of levelling the match, Sinner had every answer.
He caught up to the drop shots. He chased down the laser-like forehands that shot toward the lines like heat-seeking missiles and blocked them back. In tennis as in physics, some of this was action and some of it was reaction. Sinner's speed and power made Djokovic's best shots worse, because he had to try and hit them better than he has done in almost a year.
Sinner had serves that were too big for the greatest returner of this era and maybe any other. Sinner stayed in and took control of backhand exchanges with the most solid backhand of this era and maybe any other. Staying with all that stressed Sinner as Djokovic had rarely stressed him in their two matches prior to this one. But at the end of the night, Djokovic had nothing but little victories to show for it.
Were he not 38 and in the twilight of this career, Djokovic would head to some practice court in Monte Carlo or Marbella or Montenegro and solve this puzzle, the way he solved Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, and at times has solved Alcaraz, most recently in January.
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Sinner may be riddle he just can't solve in the time he has left, not on hard courts and now, perhaps not on clay. This was the first time Sinner has beaten Djokovic on the red dirt. Only the grass remains. It's a surface that the seven-time Wimbledon champion knows better than anyone, but Alcaraz has twice topped him there. Sinner will want to follow him.
Those little victories arrived for Djokovic through the night. The biggest little one was one of those mad points in which he and Sinner sent each other up and up and back and all over the court, until Djokovic got in front of the ball to dig a backhand volley into an open court.
That was early in the second set. There was still hope. Djokovic had lost the first set to Alexander Zverev Wednesday night, and to Alcaraz in Australia. He had come away with the win on both occasions. When that point from the gods, one of so many Friday night, was over, the 15,000 fans packed into Court Philippe-Chatrier stood and roared.
Djokovic put his hands on his hips and stood still for a few seconds while catching his breath and letting the roars fall over him. He looked like he might take a bow. Instead he windmilled his arms as he walked to his towel, whipping everyone up into another frenzy.
Trouble was, all that work had only gotten the score back to deuce on Sinner's serve. It hadn't gotten him even to a chance to break. He'd have to wait until the end of that set for one of those. When he finally got it, for the first time in nearly eight sets, Sinner's ball into the tape at the top of the net only drew him even at 5-5. Sinner then broke him back and served out the set with a series of bombs that Djokovic couldn't get back onto the court.
Then there were the three set points, with Sinner serving at 4-5 in the third and Djokovic trying to make a last stand. Just getting to the first two had sent him retrieving a ball outside the doubles alley and then the next in the opposite corner. Once again, most of the 15,000 were on their feet, and Djokovic was windmilling his arms like an over-exuberant orchestra conductor.
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Then came more big Sinner serves to snuff those out. Djokovic eventually got the clear shot he wanted, but missed a forehand a good way wide. Sinner snuffed him out again, after a brief contretemps about a ball mark.
Then came the tiebreak that looked set to be a microcosm of the match, before Sinner did what Sinner does when he's had enough. He got his toes up on the baseline and let his arm fly and pinned Djokovic in the back court. Djokovic fought his way forward. Down 2-0, with the chance to get proceedings back on serve, he got to the net, took dead aim at a short lob and pounded it into the net. His shoulders dropped, the air left his lungs. His head sagged. Sinner finally had the lead he was never going to relinquish.