This is what Novak Djokovic used to do to everyone else. Dismantle them, demoralise them, grind them into the fading Wimbledon grass. Give them nothing and whenever the silly person on the other side of the net thought they caught the faintest spark of hope, stamp it out like the embers of a discarded cigarette.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion, even at the age of nearly 40, on the back of a shoulder injury and having needed more than five hours in his previous match to get here, fought harder and braver than many others could hope to do in the face of the most ruthless and relentless display of tennis by world number one and reigning Wimbledon champion Jannik Sinner. But even Djokovic, in the end, never stood a chance. Number 25, if it is ever to come, must wait longer still. He insists he will be back next year to try again.
‘I would like to, at least one more time,’ said Djokovic. He will be 40 then. ‘Of course, I’m disappointed. I wanted to win Wimbledon. That’s the reason why I still push myself so hard. I just lost to a better player.
‘There’s always a question how far you want to go, what you want to play, how you want to play. No one is forcing me to play. I do it because I really want to and because I still can. I proved to myself and others that I can still play at the highest level.’
Djokovic, to his great credit, saved 10 of the 13 break points he faced, but when Sinner allows you just one of your own across three sets, even a Herculean effort will always fall short. After two hours and 20 minutes, the scoreboard in the corner of Centre Court read that Sinner had won 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, to play Arthur Fery’s conqueror and French Open champion Alexander Zverev in the final for a chance to become the 10th man to win back-to-back singles titles.
Good luck, Alexander.
Novak Djokovic was steamrollered by Jannik Sinner across three tight sets to miss out on a place in the Wimbledon
The Italian has had an uneven tournament so far but looked to be peaking on Centre Court
The cold, hard numbers will never tell you just how ferocious Sinner was, how aggressive he was in putting the greatest defensive player ever to pick up a racquet so far on the back foot that the longer the rallies went on, the more Djokovic’s grunts frequently turned into groans.
Sinner attacked Djokovic’s second serve so relentlessly that the Serbian won just a single point on it across the entire first set.
Djokovic has not always had the smoothest relationship with the Centre Court crowd – plenty of them booed him only two days earlier when he complained about the roof being closed – but even they chanted his name this time. They appreciated the impossible task at hand. Cries of ‘Novak, Novak!’ echoed as Djokovic earned his first, and only, break point of the match. Sinner just sent down another ace, one of 16 in the match, to take it away again and Djokovic’s head dropped toward the turf.
Whenever Djokovic thought the door might creak open, Sinner just kept slamming it shut. Twice Djokovic led 15-30 on Sinner’s serve in the second set, twice the crowd drew breath, twice Sinner followed it with an ace, and twice Djokovic didn’t win another point.
Sinner’s all-round game was astonishing. A brutal cross-court backhand set up break points in the second set, only for him to clinch it with the softest of drop shots. And then he held to love, sending down three aces in a row, to move a game away from a two-set lead and then served to love again to clinch it.
Punch after punch after punch. Djokovic had already saved three break points in the opening game of the third set only for a fourth to follow. All he had left was a weak volley into the net. Sinner served to love, again, to win the match.
Djokovic had felt similar brute force at this same stage last year in another straight-sets defeat but victory in their last meeting in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, and Sinner’s unusually shaky form over the past fortnight, gave hope that a quarter of a century may still be possible, even on the back of the longest quarter-final in history against Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Before this, Sinner had been a shadow of his near-unbeatable self. He needed five sets to get through the first round and, while not dropping another set on the way to the last four, had needed another four tie-breaks en route. He had looked unrecognisable to the man on a 30-match winning streak before he wilted in the Paris sun. So dramatic was that collapse at the French Open, however, it always threatened to rock the belief of even the most emotionless of winning machines.
Not that he had to worry about that this time, thanks to the kind schedulers at the All England Club who broke tradition to put his match on last despite their extra day rest, so he had nice late-afternoon breeze to contend with instead of the searing sun.
‘I knew mentally that I had to raise my level, which I did,’ said Sinner. ‘I did that today. I worked very hard in the past couple of days to have good rhythm, to put my body and mind in the position to be as competitive as possible. Against Novak, you need to play your best tennis.’
