Something most people thought is impossible just happened. The iconic Novak Djokovic lost the semifinals of the Australian Open. He lost on Friday against Jannik Sinner, an Italian 22-year old, who will play in the finals now. Djokovic never lost a semifinal or final in his life.
The way Djokovic lost against Sinner
After a very impressive run from Djokovic of 20-0 wins in the most important matches of tennis tournaments (semi-finals and finals) he lost his first one. He won a record of 10 tournaments but that streak ended now with the loss against Sinner. The Italian tennis player beat the 24-time Grand Slam champion with 6-1, 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-3.
Even though it did not look good for Djokovic from the beginning it is no wonder that many still believed he would win. Due to his performances in other important games and massive comebacks everyone thought that would be another one of those matches.
Sinner proved them wrong though this time. He was pushing himself throughout the entire match and didn’t let Djokovic have any chance. Sinner never slowed down and continued to put pressure on Djokovic for the entire game until he lost. Even after Djokovic could win a set, Sinner pushed himself even more and finally ended the impressive run of the Serbian Tennis player after the fourth set.
Sinner said after the game:
“I tried to keep pushing […] I lost last year to him in the semis of Wimbledon. I learned a lot from that.”
Jannik Sinner
Almost all of the opponents of Djokovic are either retired or almost there so his last challenge really is to show the next generation that he is one of the best to ever play the game. This loss from Djokovic did not contribute to that statement though.
Djokovic said after the match:
“I was, in a way, shocked with my level, you know, in a bad way […] There was not much I was doing right in the first two sets. I guess this is one of the worst Grand Slam matches I’ve ever played. At least that I remember.”
Novak Djokovic
Sinner had very impressive statistics in this game. 65% of his first serves were successful and he won 80% of those points. Djokovic though, after his first set, only hit 43% of his first serves and won only 15 of those 43 points that were played. The second set was not much better either. It had 14 unforced errors and an outscore on points of 28-17. With that loss the stats of Novak Djokovic fell to 20-1 in wins and losses of the semi-finals and finals.
Leave a Reply