The king of Melbourne is dethroned. Novak Djokovic suffers a bitter defeat in the semi-finals of the Australian Open. His opponent reaches the final of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time
The Italian Jannik Sinner has demystified defending champion Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the Australian Open and ended the Serb’s mega-series in Melbourne. Sinner beat the world number one 6:1, 6:2, 6:7 (6:8), 6:3 to reach the final of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. The 22-year-old converted his second match point after 3:22 hours.
For Djokovic, who has won the Australian Open ten times, it was his first ever semi-final defeat at his favorite tournament. It was his first defeat on the Yarra River in 2195 days. The last time he was beaten was in the round of 16 in 2018 by South Korean Chung Hyeon. After that, he had won 33 matches in a row in Melbourne
Djokovic: “Jannik completely dominated me today “
“That was one of the worst Grand Slam matches I’ve ever played. I was shocked by the level I played,” said a frustrated Djokovic after the match. “To be honest, I didn’t play well the whole tournament. Jannik completely dominated me today and completely deserved to win.”
In the final on Sunday, Sinner will face either Alexander Zverev or the Russian Daniil Medvedev. The two arch-rivals will face each other in the second semi-final from 9.30 a.m. (CET/Eurosport).
“It was a very tough match. I started really well and had the impression that he wasn’t feeling really good,” said Sinner after his impressive performance. “I lost to him in the semi-finals at Wimbledon last year, I learned a lot from that,” said the Italian. “To be in the final is great. I will go out on court with a smile on my face.”
Sinner got off to a furious start in the Rod Laver Arena and immediately took Djokovic’s serve. The world number one seemed strangely inhibited and made many avoidable mistakes. Sinner, who had already won two out of three duels with Djokovic at the end of last year, didn’t even need to play his best tennis to take the first set 6:1 after just 35 minutes.
Sinner breaks again in the fourth set
In the second set, the Italian dominated proceedings at will in only his second semi-final at Grand Slam level. Djokovic was unusually unemotional on his absolute favorite court and let the action pass him by without much emotion.
It was only when he fended off a break point at 2:4 that the Serb pushed himself. The crowd was immediately there and tried to push Djokovic forward. But Sinner kept his cool and took the second set after just 73 minutes. At this point, Djokovic had made 29 easy errors – it felt like the 36-year-old had never played so badly in Melbourne.
It was only in the third set that Djokovic improved and discovered his fighting spirit. But Sinner continued to serve incredibly well and didn’t allow the Serb a single break point in the entire match. Nevertheless, Djokovic saved himself in the fourth set, partly because he was able to fend off a match point in the tie-break. But Sinner remained focused, managed the break in the fourth set to make it 3:1 and was then unstoppable.
