Hours before Novak Djokovic and Felix Auger-Aliassime disappeared into a five-hour classic on Centre Court, Jannik Sinner allowed himself a conditional. \u201cFirst of all, let\u2019s see \u2013 he has a tough match,\u201d the world No. 1 said, asked how a semifinal against Djokovic might feel. \u201cIf it\u2019s Novak\u2026\u201d By 10:54 p.m., after Djokovic had survived a deciding-set tiebreak, the condition was met. The two wins that separate each man from the final now run through the other.<\/p>\n
For Sinner, the matchup carries a weight that has little to do with rankings. Where many expected him to dwell on the challenge, on the Melbourne trauma, on anything tied to a rivalry now running 5-1 in his favour since the 2023 ATP Finals, the Italian chose instead to speak of a mentor-and-pupil relationship \u2013 a turn that was both refreshing and astonishing<\/p>\n
Sinner : \u201cUnreachable\u201d<\/p>\n
Rewind eleven years, to a teenager watching from the side of a practice court in Monte Carlo. \u201cWhen I was 14 or 15, I saw him practise for the first time,\u201d Sinner recalled. \u201cWe took a photo \u2013 I had a blue shirt, long hair, I don\u2019t quite remember. When you meet him again for the first time, it\u2019s incredible, because it was something so unreachable back then. I was always realistic, I always said I\u2019d never reach this level.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reached that level tennis-wise, of course, and then some; but nothing comparable yet in terms of achievements (four majors to 24). Sinner arrives at his 10th Grand Slam semifinal as the defending Wimbledon champion, the top seed, and a man who has sharpened all fortnight \u2013 his rebuilt serve firing 16 aces against two double faults in a straight-sets quarterfinal win over Jan-Lennard Struff. He is, by any measure, the present of the sport. Djokovic, at 39, is its most stubborn past.<\/p>\n
How he trains, how much he dedicates to himself, his body and everything, and the motivation he still has \u2013 it\u2019s incredible<\/p>\n
That the older man is here at all defies the arc of most careers. His win over Auger-Aliassime carried him to a record 15th Wimbledon semifinal \u2013 an eighth in a row, an all-time record \u2013 and a 55th at the majors, making him only the second man in the Open Era to reach the last four here aged 39 or older, after Ken Rosewall in 1974. Sinner, who has watched it up close, sounded less like a rival than an admirer. \u201cHow he trains, how much he dedicates to himself, his body and everything, and the motivation he still has \u2013 it\u2019s incredible,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can be very happy that he\u2019s still here, giving 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinner\u2019s reverence is not fear<\/p>\n
Reverence, though, is not the same as fear. Sinner\u2019s first win over Djokovic once felt, in his words, \u201csurreal.\u201d It does not any more. \u201cI know I\u2019m capable of beating him if I play well, but I also know I can lose,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s pressure, yes, but I take it very naturally.\u201d The head-to-head bears out that shift: after Djokovic beat him in the 2023 Turin final, Sinner reeled off a run of wins across every surface, before the Serb struck back in five sets at this year\u2019s Australian Open. \u201cEvery match has its own story,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cEven when I had this small streak with him, every match is different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The respect runs both ways. Asked in Serbian about the challenge waiting for him, Djokovic did not reach for false modesty: \u201cSinner is number one right now and the best player in the world, and that kind of continuity and consistency he has in his results is really remarkable.\u201d The idol, it seems, has come to admire the pupil too.<\/p>\n
The idol is waiting<\/p>\n
The venue only sharpens the intrigue. Last year, in this same round, Sinner beat Djokovic on his way to a maiden Wimbledon title \u2013 for many, the moment the guard changed. Yet grass, Sinner warned, forgives nobody. \u201cEspecially when you play on a surface like this \u2013 if you have a bad serving day, or you\u2019re not feeling the ball very well, it\u2019s going to be very, very tough,\u201d he said. Against a seven-time champion who \u201chas won this tournament so many times and knows exactly how to approach it,\u201d the margins will be slender.<\/p>\n
The stakes could hardly be starker. For Djokovic, a place in the final would keep alive the pursuit of a 25th major and a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon crown \u2013 a title that would make him the oldest Grand Slam champion in the Open Era. For Sinner, it is the next step toward a second straight Wimbledon title. One is chasing history\u2019s outer edge; the other is trying to keep history at bay.<\/p>\n
And so the boy with the blue shirt and the long hair will walk out to face the player he once thought he could never touch \u2013 no longer starstruck, but not quite done marvelling either. \u201cIt\u2019s very nice to have him around,\u201d Sinner said of Djokovic on Tuesday, before the quarterfinals had even been settled. \u201cNow we\u2019ll see if he wins or not in semifinal.\u201d He won. The idol is waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hours before Novak Djokovic and Felix Auger-Aliassime disappeared into a five-hour classic on Centre Court, Jannik Sinner allowed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-791145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}