{"id":54730,"date":"2025-07-10T18:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T18:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/54730\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T18:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T18:03:08","slug":"novak-djokovic-is-ready-to-face-jannik-sinner-and-the-other-young-guys-at-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/54730\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic is ready to face Jannik Sinner and the other young guys at Wimbledon"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON — LONDON (AP) \u2014 Novak Djokovic<\/a> began expressing a heartfelt thought about returning to the semifinals at the All England Club<\/a> \u2014 \u201cIt means the world to me,\u201d he was saying, \u201cthat I\u2019m still able, at 38, to play (in the) final stages of Wimbledon\u201d \u2014 when the Centre Court crowd interrupted with yelling and applause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for cheering for my age. I really appreciate it. That\u2019s beautiful. Makes me feel very young,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cAnother thing that makes me feel very young is competing with youngsters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Truth is, Djokovic should be used to this sort of thing by now. He is the last member of a golden era of men’s tennis still on tour, and after beating one 23-year-old in the quarterfinals, Flavio Cobolli, to reach his 52nd Grand Slam semifinal as he bids for a record 25th major singles championship<\/a>, Djokovic will meet yet another 23-year-old, No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner<\/a>, on Friday for a berth in the final.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat motivates me \u2014 to see how much can I still keep going with these guys, toe-to-toe,\u201d the sixth-seeded Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

He’s lost his last four matches against Sinner, including in the semifinals of this year’s French Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And Djokovic lost each of the past two title matches at Wimbledon to Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, who is almost exactly 16 years younger, meaning they’re the men with the second-largest age gap between major final opponents.<\/p>\n

No. 2 Alcaraz, who is 22, will play No. 5 Taylor Fritz<\/a>, 27, in the other semifinal.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz and Sinner \u2014 a pair Djokovic identified as \u201cthe leaders of (men’s) tennis today\u201d \u2014 have combined to win the last six Slam trophies in a row.<\/p>\n

For Alcaraz, his career haul of five Slams includes the title last month at Roland-Garros, where he overcame a two-set deficit and a trio of championship points to sneak past Sinner in a five-set, 5 1\/2-hour classic of a final. Sinner’s count is three. Both have been ranked No. 1. (Fritz’s best showing at a major was being the runner-up to Sinner at the U.S. Open<\/a> last September.)<\/p>\n

All noteworthy. But nothing compared to what’s on Djokovic’s resume, which includes seven triumphs at Wimbledon alone \u2014 one shy of Roger Federer’s men’s mark \u2014 and 100 tournament titles, along with the most weeks spent at No. 1 in the rankings by any player.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a legend of our sport,\u201d the 22nd-seeded Cobolli said Wednesday after being eliminated 6-7 (6), 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 by Djokovic.<\/p>\n

Sinner’s playing style draws comparison’s to Djokovic’s<\/a>, from the returning prowess to the court coverage to the power-plus-precision groundstrokes. Not much higher a compliment is possible.<\/p>\n

Djokovic took each of their first three head-to-head matchups, including at the All England Club in the 2022 quarterfinals and 2023 semifinals. But Sinner has gone 4-1 since.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and Novak, we know (each other) … because we played quite a lot. So we understand what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not,\u201d said Sinner, who out-served big-hitting Ben Shelton<\/a> in a 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4 quarterfinal victory Wednesday. \u201cBut I\u2019ve never won against him here in Wimbledon, so it\u2019s going to be a very, very tough challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worth monitoring Friday: Djokovic took an awkward fall in the last game against Cobolli; Sinner hurt his right elbow when he slipped in the last game of his fourth-round match Monday.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz and Fritz have met just twice, never at a major and never on grass. Alcaraz won both matches.<\/p>\n

But Fritz has become a different player over the past year, improving his returns and overall game while still possessing one of the best serves around. The surface at Wimbledon can only help, he figures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that we\u2019re not playing at the French Open, on clay, with the French Open balls, \u2019cause that would be an absolute nightmare,\u201d the Californian said. \u201cGrass is very much so an equalizer.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Howard Fendrich has been the AP\u2019s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https:\/\/apnews.com\/author\/howard-fendrich<\/a>. More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON — LONDON (AP) \u2014 Novak Djokovic began expressing a heartfelt thought about returning to the semifinals at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[40479,347,57,62,1464,67,132,68,14374,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-54730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-40479","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-wimbledon-championships","17":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114830259204075951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}