22-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner advanced to the final of a grand slam tournament for the first time.
STT Sports,
Emma Jump
Italian Jannik Sinner dropped a tennis bomb on Friday morning Finnish time when he defeated Serbia in the men’s singles semi-finals of the Australian Open Novak Djokovic as 6–1, 6–2, 6–7 (6–8), 6–3.
World number one Djokovic was the reigning champion of the tournament. The Serbian has won the Australian Open Men’s Singles Championship a total of ten times. Every previous time he has reached the semi-finals, he has advanced to the final and won it.
The match lasted almost three and a half hours. Sinner, ranked fourth in the tournament, clearly won the first two sets, but Djokovic, ranked number one, pulled away to win the tiebreaker in the third set at the end of a set that lasted almost an hour and a half and extended his tournament.
In the fourth set, Sinner knocked the game clear and advanced to the final match of the grand slam tournament for the first time.
– This was a very tough match. I started really well. The first two rounds passed him by. It felt like he didn’t feel great on the field, so I just pushed on, Sinner summed up.
The Italian lost to Djokovic in the semifinals of Wimbledon last year and said that he had learned his lesson.
Now the game mostly ran fine.
– In the third set I had a match point and missed a forehand, but that’s how tennis is. After that I just tried to be ready for the next round, which I started really well.
There is still either Russia on the way to Sinner’s first championship Daniil Medvedev or Germany Alexander Zverevwho will meet in the second semi-final.