When Jannik Sinner arrived at three match points in the fourth set of his Wimbledon final against Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday, the memory of what happened five weeks ago in Paris was flashing through the minds of everyone inside Centre Court.

Everyone, perhaps, except world number one Sinner, who managed to banish any lurking demons from the darkest recesses of his brain to seal a 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 victory and become the first Italian Wimbledon singles champion.

But unlike that day when three consecutive match points vanished in the fourth set and Alcaraz roared back to win the longest French Open final ever, this time the ice-cool Sinner was never going to be denied.

Alcaraz, who was bidding to become only the fifth man in the professional era to win three successive Wimbledon titles under the watchful eye of Spain’s King Felipe in the Royal Box, saved one match point.

But this time there was no escape for Alcaraz as Sinner fired down an unreturnable serve.

There were no ecstatic celebrations either. Sinner raised his arms to the sky, before consoling the man he de-throned and headed off in time-honoured fashion to embrace those in his box.

“Back in the days when I was young, this was only a dream, because it was so far away from where I’m from,” the man from the Dolomites who could have become a top skier, said on court.

“Emotionally I had a very tough loss in Paris. So I’m very happy that I held my nerves and yeah, it’s an amazing feeling.”

It was Sinner’s fourth Grand Slam trophy and his first title since returning from a short doping ban after testing positive for a banned substance which inadvertently entered his system from a member of his support team through massages and sports therapy.

While Sunday’s duel contained some mind-boggling points, it lacked the twists of last month’s Roland Garros roller-coaster.

It did, though, underline why the Sinner-Alcaraz rivalry is set to dominate men’s tennis for the foreseeable future.

Since the start of the 2024, they have won all seven of the Grand Slams on offer, Sinner four and Alcaraz three.

Alcaraz had led their series 8-4 before Sunday, including winning their last five showdowns. So while Sinner was fuelled by a shot at redemption, he also needed to buck that trend.

He did so with a superlative display of craft and skill. He refused to be knocked off track by losing the last four games of the first set and went on to pick apart Alcaraz’s game with a level of tennis his opponent could not match.

GREAT RIVALRY

“Every time we play against each other, I think our level is really high,” Alcaraz, who suffered his first loss in six Grand Slam finals, said. “I don’t see any players playing against each other, having the level that we are playing.

“Really grateful for this (rivalry) because it gives me the opportunity to give my 100% every practice, every day. The level I have to maintain if I want to beat Jannik is really high.”

But for Alcaraz’s astonishing comeback in Paris, Sinner would now hold all four Grand Slam titles, having won last year’s U.S. Open and a second Australian Open in January.

Sinner did benefit from a stroke of luck when Grigor Dimitrov retired while two sets up in the fourth round.

“He caught a break, no question,” his coach Darren Cahill admitted.

But from that point on, Sinner barely put a foot wrong.

Alcaraz, below his best, was always vulnerable to Sinner’s crisp, early ball-striking but still hit back from a slow start and clinched the first set with a stretching backhand sliced winner from an impossible position.

Sinner grabbed an early break in the second though and consolidated it despite a bizarre moment when a Champagne cork popping and landed on the court — prompting loud boos.

Just as Alcaraz sealed the opening set in style, Sinner produced a moment of magic to take the second, whipping an audacious forehand winner at full elastic stretch.

The third set felt crucial and after a lull it was Alcaraz who blinked, dropping serve at 4-4 after a slide and slip on the baseline allowed Sinner to guide away a winner.

Sinner held serve to move one set from history but after what happened in Paris, the finishing line still felt far away.

But the usual Alcaraz exuberance was missing and he was scowling after Sinner clubbed away a backhand winner off a short second serve to gain an early break in the fourth and his mood darkened as Sinner held serve for 4-2 lead with a net cord.

Sinner survived a huge test of his nerve at 4-3, 15-40 when a break may have re-ignited Alcaraz but he showed remarkable composure to take the next four points.

The biggest examination came at 5-4 though with Sinner obliged to serve for the title and he passed it with barely a backward glance.

In the day’s appetiser, eighth seeds Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens beat Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko 3-6 6-2 6-4 in the women’s doubles final.

-Reuters

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Top seed Jannik Sinner ensured Novak Djokovic will be absent from a Wimbledon men’s singles final for the first time in eight years after handing the Serbian great a brutal Centre Court battering on Friday.

Italian Sinner lost both his previous Wimbledon duels with Djokovic but turned the tables in emphatic fashion as his power and precision proved too much for the seven-time champion who, at 38, looked every bit his age in a humbling 6-3 6-3 6-4 loss.

In his first Wimbledon final, the 23-year-old Sinner will face Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in a tantalising re-match of their recent French Open humdinger which the Italian lost after battling for more than five hours, squandering three championship points.

Alcaraz stayed on course for a Wimbledon three-peat with a 6-4 5-7 6-3 7-6(6) defeat of Taylor Fritz.

“I don’t know what to expect, you saw the last final and you never know,” Sinner, just the third Italian to reach a Wimbledon singles final and hoping to become his country’s first champion at the grasscourt slam,” said on court.

“It’s a huge honour to share the court with Carlos, we try to push ourselves to the limit. I love watching him. Hopefully it will be a good match like the last one, I don’t know about better, I don’t think that’s possible.”

Djokovic, who arrived in London bidding to equal Roger Federer’s men’s record eight Wimbledon titles and claim an unprecedented 25th major trophy, had not lost an All England Club semi-final since the Swiss got the better of him in 2012.

But his 52nd Grand Slam semi-final proved a bridge too far as Sinner repeated his victory at the same stage of Roland Garros to confirm that a new order has now firmly established itself at the top of men’s tennis.

Djokovic has often looked superhuman on Wimbledon’s most historic stage, but on Friday Father Time chased him down as he looked defenceless against a sublime Sinner who dropped only six points on serve in the first two sets.

He briefly stemmed the tide in the third set to move 3-0 ahead but it proved an illusion as Sinner, bidding to add the Wimbledon title to his two Australian and one U.S. Open crowns, nipped any hope of a famous comeback in the bud.

STRUGGLE PHYSICALLY

Djokovic appeared to struggle physically in the closing stages after needing treatment and Sinner wasted no time in putting the old warrior out of his misery in less than two hours to complete his set of Grand Slam finals.

Sinner joined in the applause as Djokovic left Centre Court, giving a thumbs up to a cheering crowd who may have thought they had witnessed his last Wimbledon hurrah.

Djokovic, who has reached the semi-finals of every Grand Slam this year — retiring against Alexander Zverev in Australia and losing to Sinner in Paris and now here — later said he plans to be back, but admitted the wear and tear of battling the new generation takes its toll.

“When I’m fresh and fit I can still play really good tennis but playing best of five, particularly this year, has been a struggle physically,” he told reporters.

“The longer it goes, the worse the condition gets. I reached the semis of every slam this year but had to play these guys who are fit and young and I feel like I go into the matches with the tank half empty.

“It’s just one of those things I need to embrace and deal with the reality.”

The day’s second semi-final had been given top billing but it proved an anti-climax for the fans, many of whom chanted “Nole Nole” as the match sped away from Djokovic.

Sinner’s net-skimming, line-hugging ground strokes — the sort that come straight from the Djokovic textbook — were suffocating on a boiling Centre Court, while his serving was untouchable. With 41 minutes on the clock, Sinner was a set and a break ahead and in complete control.

Djokovic, who slipped on match point of his quarter-final win against Flavio Cobolli and missed his training session on Thursday, required treatment at the end of the second set.

Just for a while it seemed Sinner’s fire had been doused as he lost concentration, but this time there was to be no Djokovic fightback as his resistance faded quickly.

Alcaraz faced a more troublesome afternoon taming the big-serving Fritz in fierce heat and had to save two set points in the fourth-set tiebreaker to avoid being dragged into a decider.

Looking ahead to the final, he said: “Just going to be a great day, a great final. I’m just excited about it.”

-Reuters

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Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz produced an utterly ruthless performance to dismantle Serbia’s Novak Djokovic 6-2 6-2 7-6(4) in a rematch of last year’s Wimbledon final to successfully defend his title on Sunday.

Alcaraz now has four Grand Slam trophies with a perfect record in major finals, after his two Wimbledon triumphs, his U.S. Open victory in 2022 and his French Open win last month.

Defeat denied Djokovic a 25th Grand Slam title to surpass Margaret Court in the all-time list and also equal Roger Federer’s haul of eight men’s singles titles at Wimbledon.

Alcaraz pounced on his fifth break point in a tight first game that lasted 14 minutes, before the 21-year-old third seed dropped the hammer and powered through the opening set on the back of some solid serving.

Second seed Djokovic came under more pressure at the start of the next set as Alcaraz bullied the 37-year-old in the early exchanges to break and capitalised on his service woes for an imposing two-set lead.

Djokovic and Alcaraz went toe-to-toe until 4-4 in the third set before the Spaniard broke with a big backhand winner to take a 5-4 lead. However, despite being 40-0 up, he squandered three match points and dropped serve.

He tamed his nerves to clinch victory in the tiebreak when Djokovic crashed a return into the net.

-Reuters