{"id":448059,"date":"2026-01-30T20:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448059\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T20:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:15:08","slug":"novak-djokovic-thanks-doubters-for-giving-him-strength-after-sinner-success-australian-open-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448059\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic thanks doubters for giving him strength after Sinner success | Australian Open 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic thanked his doubters for helping to give him strength after he produced an incredible performance<\/a> to defeat Jannik Sinner, the No 2 and two-time defending champion, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the Australian Open final.<\/p>\n

Djokovic, the fourth seed, will contest his 11th Australian Open<\/a> final and 38th grand slam final overall on Sunday, his first losing the Wimbledon final in July 2024. At 38 years old, he is the oldest Australian Open men\u2019s finalist in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never stopped believing in myself,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that doubt me. I see there is a lot of experts all of a sudden that wanted to retire me or have retired me many times the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank them all, because they gave me strength. They gave me motivation to prove them wrong, which I have tonight. For me, it\u2019s not a surprise, to be honest. I know what I\u2019m capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took an superlative display from the Serb to defeat Sinner, who has become one of the two dominant forces in men\u2019s tennis alongside Carlos Alcaraz. Djokovic played bold, offensive tennis, eviscerating his forehand, serving brilliantly in the important moments and matching the Italian\u2019s physicality despite being 14 years older than his rival.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t dare to call it [my] finest ever [victory] but definitely the finest in the last couple of years,\u201d said Djokovic. \u201cUnder the circumstances and semis against Sinner, who has been playing best tennis of his life in the last couple of years, particularly here \u2026 the two-time defending champion, [it] doesn\u2019t get better than this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, when I started my preparations for the new season and kind of set the goals, it\u2019s no secret that grand slams are where I want to play my best tennis. But it becomes, I guess, more difficult for me to motivate myself, and I ask myself questions. \u2018OK, what is it that I\u2019m looking for from myself?\u2019 I was imagining playing against Jannik and Carlos [Alcaraz] at the final stages of grand slams this year and battling it out and really giving it all that I have.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, very fortunate to already get it in the first slam of the year. So, yeah, big win. Very proud. Very happy. Very relieved, as well, because it was physically very demanding and gruelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic will next face Alcaraz, the No 1, after the Spaniard survived his own five-set epic<\/a> against Alexander Zverev, the third seed: \u201cI know I have to come back in less than a couple of days and fight the No 1 in the world,\u201d said Djokovic. \u201cI just hope that I\u2019ll have enough gas to stay toe to toe with him. That\u2019s my desire, then let the gods decide the winner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic thanked his doubters for helping to give him strength after he produced an incredible performance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-448059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}