By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Sunday, October 13, 2024
Picture credit score: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty
Novak Djokovic has utilized creative deconstruction capturing 24 Grand Slam titles.
Seeing Djokovic making an attempt to interrupt down Jannik Sinner in at the moment’s Shanghai closing was like watching a former heavyweight champion making an attempt to knock out his personal shadow.
More: Rafael Nadal Announces Retirement from Tennis
The Grand Slam king took his cracks, however world No. 1 Sinner struck stinging blows scoring a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over fourth-seeded Djokovic in at the moment’s Rolex Shanghai Masters closing.
Solidifying his standing because the world’s greatest participant, Sinner seized his seventh title of the season, bettering to 7-1 in finals, and raised his 2024 hard-record vs. High 5 opponents to 8-2.
Since shedding to Djokovic within the ATP Finals in Turin final November, Sinner has overwhelmed the 10-time Australian Open champion thrice in a row and has received 4 of their final 5 conferences to stage their head-to-head at 4 wins apiece.
Requested to evaluate the similarities between himself and Sinner, Djokovic cited three key elements between the pair of former junior standout skiers:
1. Steadiness off forehand and backhand and point-ending energy off both wing.
2. Each are baseliners who developed all-court video games and sharpened their serves throughout their careers.
3. The talent of straddling the baseline and taking the ball on the rise empowers each males to squeeze opponents’ response time and “suffocate” them over the course of baseline rallies.
“Throughout, you realize, each shot [Sinner’s] obtained within the recreation,” Djokovic mentioned. “He is improved his serve tremendously, I feel that grew to become an enormous weapon. He is simply very aggressive from the baseline, as quickly as he is obtained a shorter ball, he is taking the initiative.
“Simply very strong from forehand and backhand, does not make too many errors, and simply tries to remove the time from the opponent.
“, that is one thing that jogs my memory of myself all through my profession, that is what I’ve achieved for therefore a few years persistently, you realize, enjoying fast-paced tennis, taking away time from the opponent, sort of suffocating the opponent, if you need, in a sure approach.”
As a trio of former world No.1 champions—Carlos Alcaraz, his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer—watched intently, the 23-year-old Sinner separated himself from the four-time Shanghai champion denying Djokovic his one centesimal profession championship.
A 12 months in the past, Djokovic captured three of the 4 Grand Slams with solely Alcaraz’s dramatic Wimbledon closing conquest stopping the Serbian from making historical past as the primary man to win the calendar Grand Slam since Rocket Rod Laver in 1969.
This 12 months, Sinner and Alcaraz have break up the Grand Slam spoils.
Djokovic says Sinner’s highly effective presence and championship consistency are keys to his spectacular season changing into the primary Italian man to safe the ATP season-ending world No. 1 rating.
“That is what you need, you need your opponents all the time to really feel beneath stress out of your pictures, out of your velocity, out of your presence on the courtroom,” Djokovic mentioned. “So he is obtained that, I imply, this 12 months he is been so constant, it is actually, actually spectacular.”
.jpg)
