Elbow troubles aside: Jannik Sinner dismisses a dangerous opponent like Ben Shelton and reaches the Wimbledon semi-finals for the second time in her career, in five participations in the prestigious London tournament. The only precedent is from 2023, while last year the South Tyrolean stopped at the quarterfinals: the grass court tournament is also the only Grand Slam tournament, at the moment, in which Sinner has never reached the final. He will try again this time, going to challenge Novak Djokovic in a remake of the semifinal of a month ago at Roland Garros, when the Italian number 1 in the world won without too many worries, in three sets, but then went on to lose a legendary and dramatic final against Carlos Alcaraz in five sets. Djokovic, for his part, qualified by defeating the other Italian in the draw, Flavio Cobolli, 6-7, 6-2, 7-5, 6-4.
Shelton defeated in three sets, now Djokovic
Jannik, on the other hand, only needed three sets (7-6 6-4 6-4) to overcome Shelton in a quarter-final that was not without dangers for him, who was coming from a match against Grigor Dimitrov won only thanks to the withdrawal of the Bulgarian, who was leading two sets to nil and seemed to honestly have the match under control, as the champion from San Candido himself acknowledged sportingly in the press conference. And then that problem with his right elbow that on the eve of the match against the mancAmerican Shelton had even made people think about retiring. Instead, the Italian did not tremble (“The pain? I didn't think about it,” he later said in interviews at the end of the match) and will therefore face the Serbian former world number one, at the end of his career but still very competitive, especially in the Grand Slam tournaments and in recent years especially on grass. WimbledonAt the moment direct comparisons between the two champions see in Sinner leads 5-4, but above all the Italian has won all the last four crossescagainst Djokovic: Davis Cup, Australian Open, Shanghai Masters 1000 and Roland Garros.
Precedents against Novak
The Serbian's last victory dates back to the end of 2023, in the final of the ATP Finals (in the round robin of the same edition, Sinner won instead, for the first time in his career against Novak). It should be noted, however, that Djokovic is still undefeated at Wimbledon against the current world number one: the two have faced each other twice, in 2022 and 2023, and the Serbian has won both times, the first of which was in the quarterfinals, coming back from a two-sets-to-love deficit. In his quarterfinal, Nole struggled quite a bit against the other Italian who has reached this stage of the competition, the surprising Flavio Cobolli: to conquer the 14th semifinal at Wimbledon and the 52nd overall in his career in the Slams, the cIt took four sets, with the final score being 6-7, 6-2, 7-5, 6-4. Djokovic is among the very few in tennis history to have won 100 career tournaments and to have won at least 100 singles matches at Wimbledon.
