{"id":733698,"date":"2026-06-29T22:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/733698\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T22:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:47:13","slug":"sinner-overcomes-rust-and-five-set-demons-to-edge-past-kecmanovic-in-wimbledon-opener-wimbledon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/733698\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinner overcomes rust and five-set demons to edge past Kecmanovic in Wimbledon opener | Wimbledon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

For one uncomfortable month, in the aftermath of the most shocking collapse of his career<\/a>, the discourse around Jannik Sinner focused on his lack of durability. Not only was he so vulnerable in remotely warm conditions, but to many his five\u2011set record of six wins and 12 defeats was unworthy of a player of his stature.<\/p>\n

It was only fitting, then, that Sinner immediately found himself embroiled in another fifth set on his return to the match court. This time, the world No 1 kept his composure and held firm physically at the climax to recover from two sets to one down against a courageous challenger in Miomir Kecmanovic, opening his title defence with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-2, 6-3 win on Centre Court.<\/p>\n

The last time Sinner competed things spiralled out of control. He arrived at the French Open more heavily favoured to win the title than any in recent years other than Rafael Nadal at his peak. His \u00adtournament instead ended with him losing 18 of the final 20 games after leading Juan Manuel Cer\u00fandolo 6-3, 6-2, 5-1 in the second round. He has spent much of the weeks since then undergoing tests and adapting his work on the court in an attempt to figure out how to ensure that such an event never happens again.<\/p>\n

For months, many of Sinner\u2019s beaten opponents would liken his ruthless style to that of a robot or\u00a0machine. Paris at least showed \u00adSinner to be human and it underlined how challenging it is for the Italian, like all others, to constantly \u00adproduce his best regardless of the\u00a0circumstances.<\/p>\n

Sinner had opted not to compete in any grass-court tournament before Wimbledon<\/a>, so his game was also coated in rust. From a deficit of two sets to one, he did well to compose himself and find a path through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always enjoyed this moment because what emotions I felt last year, it was the first time that I felt in this way, in a very happy way,\u201d he said. \u201cComing back here and opening and play on Centre Court, this year was a year where nobody practised on it before, so it was brand new. Mentally, you know it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been an amazing, amazing day for me to feel this way at least once in my life. I think I handled the situation still quite well. It was very nervy, but very happy that I found a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blood shows through Jannik Sinner\u2019s right shoe but he did not want to change them. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Sinner looked tense and devoid of confidence from the opening set. After a series of uneventful service holds, he was leading 40-0 on his serve at 4-4 when he fell apart. \u00adSinner hit his first two double-faults on \u00adconsecutive points from 40-30, then a rancid forehand error on break point, his fourth consecutive unforced error, closed out the game. In the blink of an eye, Kecmanovic had won nine points in a row to win\u00a0the set.<\/p>\n

A shaky opening set in a best-of-five match is hardly a disaster, particularly in Sinner\u2019s first match of the grass-court season.<\/p>\n

However, even after taking the \u00adsecond set, he struggled to strike the ball freely. His error count \u00adcontinued to rise steadily and he played tentatively and tight in the \u00addecisive moments. His confidence was \u00adprobably not helped by the bad fall he suffered at the beginning of the\u00a0third set, which led to the trainer\u00a0on his right foot becoming soaked in blood.<\/p>\n

Sinner reassured his audience that he felt fine despite the very visible sight of blood on his shoe: \u201cI\u2019m good. It just seems much worse than it is. Very surprised that they let me keep playing because, you know, all white, it turned into a little red. But I didn\u2019t want to \u00addisturb Miomir. I thought we both had a good rhythm, it was a great match from both of us so I didn\u2019t want to take any time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While Sinner was tight, \u00adKecmanovic played boldly, particularly in the final minutes of a dramatic tie-break. With a potential upset becoming increasingly \u00adrealistic, the Serb forced himself on top of the baseline, taking the ball early and redirecting brilliantly off both ground strokes to establish a lead of two sets to one.<\/p>\n

Sinner took a short break between sets and when he returned, he \u00adgradually found his way again. He served brilliantly from the beginning of the fourth set, which allowed him time to regain rhythm and timing behind his ground strokes.<\/p>\n

The Italian was also \u00adunusually demonstrative, pairing his fist pumps with barks of \u201clet\u2019s go\u201d that were\u00a0audible in all corners of Centre Court.<\/p>\n

He ended the match in full control, dominating from the baseline and demonstrating the service improvements that will bode well on the grass by firing down a career-best 31 aces, while his confidence gradually returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little tight at the beginning, I didn\u2019t play my very best,\u201d he said. \u201cI tried to get into it, it was my first official match on grass. This also is very important \u2013 happy that I turned it around because the third set was a very tough one to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For one uncomfortable month, in the aftermath of the most shocking collapse of his career, the discourse around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-733698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}