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New York Times
07-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner's tennis rivalry is also a conversation
THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — The comparisons between the reserved Italian prodigy and the fiery Serbian legend date to the pre-Covid-19 days. Jannik Sinner was just starting his climb up the tennis ladder; Novak Djokovic was about to launch his decisive overtake of the greats who came before him. Advertisement Here was another former skier who moved around the court like he was tearing through a slalom. Another lanky and elastic player who played that aggressive form of defensive tennis. He was whipping forehands on tight angles and cultivating a backboard-like backhand that rarely broke down. He had a serve that needed improvement, but could become unbreakable. Sinner was Djokovic 2.0. But what about now? With so many upsets tattering the Wimbledon draw sheets this year, the biggest stars — with the exception of Coco Gauff — have largely slid into the second week below the radar. But every other day has brought an opportunity to compare the greatest player in men's tennis and one of his heirs, ahead of an increasingly likely showdown in the semifinals July 11. By the end of play Monday, Djokovic and Sinner will thrice have played within a couple hours of each other on Centre Court. It is the sport's ultimate microscope. It reveals who players are and are not like nowhere else. There is no time or space to hide a weakness on a grass court, especially the biggest one at the world's best-known and most hallowed tennis tournament. Saturday's second instalment of this double feature saw Sinner strut his stuff first. He delivered the sort of merciless straight-sets win (over Spain's Pedro Martinez) that long ago became Djokovic's trademark at the All England Club. It was an hour and three-quarters of those increasingly small, lightning quick steps, and an ever-more strategic mix of power, shotmaking and precision serving — exactly the recipe that has put the trophy in Djokovic's hands seven times. Sinner lost just 17 games in his first three matches, breaking a record of 19 previously held by Roger Federer. Once Sinner was through with Martinez, Djokovic put on one of his psychic clinics, tap dancing his way across the grass to a 6-3, 6-0, 6-4 demolition of Miomir Kecmanović, also of Serbia. And so these two players, at opposite poles in their careers but together at the very top of the sport, continued their symbiotic weave toward a confrontation that all of tennis wants to see as many times as it can, before Djokovic says he is done being the resistor to Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz's high-voltage takeover of his throne. The synergy between Sinner and Djokovic is hardly an accident. Riccardo Piatti coached both of them at his academy in their formative years. And as he has done with so many other young players who seek out his advice, Djokovic has spent plenty of time practising with Sinner, especially when they both were living in Monte Carlo several years ago. Advertisement They still occasionally practise now, though Djokovic spends most of his downtime in Belgrade. And Sinner, 23, has never forgotten the tips that Djokovic has passed along. 'He gave me a lot of information that I can (use to) make my game similar to his, but in my style,' he said of Djokovic in a news conference at the All England Club. 'He is definitely the main person I look up to, trying to do a couple of things like him.' They are different players. Sinner is several inches taller and his serve is light years ahead of where Djokovic's was when he was Sinner's age. But he also knows that they are more alike than different. 'How we maybe hit the ball on the forehand and backhand,' Sinner said of the main similarity between them, likely referring to the way they both like to stand close to the baseline as they tee off on their groundstrokes, and use their innate ability to time the ball and use its energy, momentum and direction to turn it back the other way. Djokovic said he first hit balls with Sinner when the Italian was about 14 years old. 'Skinny and tall,' is how he remembers Sinner, just like he was at that age. Speaking Saturday night after his win, he focused on what Sinner has changed in the past couple of years on his ascent to the highest echelons. 'The work that he has done with his team over the last couple of years is tremendous in terms of his improvement. Really, serve, movement, accuracy. I mean, as much as everybody talks about the speed of his shots, but the timing is incredible. 'I think he decreased the number of unforced errors he had maybe in the first few years of his career, and now he's just super accurate and constantly puts pressure on the opponent because he plays so fast.' Djokovic has had nothing but praise for Sinner for some time now. 'He's been playing some terrific tennis, attacking tennis, and just super strong from every aspect of his game,' he said ahead of their semifinal at the French Open, which Sinner won in straight sets. It was his fourth consecutive win over Djokovic. Djokovic last beat Sinner at the ATP Tour Finals in 2023. That was when Djokovic noticed that Sinner's trajectory was truly shifting, along with everybody else in tennis. He had a very close-up view. They played twice in five days, with Djokovic losing the first match and then winning the second. They had also played in the Wimbledon semifinals four months before, with Djokovic winning in straight sets. Sinner was still trying to figure out grass-court tennis when he got a live-action demonstration of how to do it. Advertisement Two weeks later, at the Davis Cup, Sinner saved three match points in their singles match and then helped beat Djokovic in the doubles. Djokovic kept expecting Sinner's level to drop. Instead, Sinner now had the stability in his groundstrokes that had long been a part of Djokovic's game, and his serve had gone to another level, just as Djokovic's had throughout his career, especially after his elbow injury in 2017. Sinner's ascent to world No. 1 and Djokovic's best recent season in 2023, when he won three Grand Slams and ended the year as world No. 1, are strikingly similar: It's pretty hard for two players at the top of the game to play more similarly than that, and their respective shot quality scores for those time periods also line up. But, as Sinner noted, differences remain, especially on grass where the lower bounces and faster reactions encourage players to mix up their shots whether they are attacking or defending. Sinner thinks Djokovic moves with more confidence on the grass than he does. So many little steps, so much anticipation. He seems to know where every shot is headed, and gets to them so quickly, with so much balance. He also plays with more variety than Sinner does, finding spots in the court that Sinner — and most other players who aren't Alcaraz — don't shoot for. But Sinner is getting closer on that front, too, and he put an extra emphasis on it as he started on the grass this year. The past 18 months he has stuck to his core shots 86.5 percent of the time on average. At Halle, Sinner's warmup for Wimbledon, that dropped to just under 80 percent. He's also learned a big lesson for succeeding on grass, which is to hit a lights-out serve. It's what Djokovic has done most of the past seven years, combining speed and placement in a way that has made him incredibly difficult to break. Sinner watched Djokovic's second-round defenestration of Dan Evans. He saw a player serving as well as he ever has when he is on. Advertisement 'He has improved a lot, the serve,' he said of Djokovic after that match. 'He was serving incredibly well.' Sinner has tried to do that, too, not just in terms of power but with accuracy. In 2022, 67.5 percent of his serves landed within two feet of the lines. This year, serving harder than he did four seasons ago, he's up to 73.5 percent. That perhaps, has created the most important similarity of all. Through the first three rounds, Sinner won 100 percent of his service games. Djokovic was right with him until his final service game against Kecmanović. So maybe, in the end, what's true in life is also true in tennis: it's all about picking the right role models. As he often is, Djokovic was happy to play the part. "I'm glad that I was able to in a sense influence him in a positive way, " Djokovic said, "hopefully as someone that he was looking up to in terms of the game."
New York Times
06-06-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Jannik Sinner beats Novak Djokovic to set up French Open final against Carlos Alcaraz
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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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. Advertisement 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.
