Market Of Bliss
CNN
—
Novak Djokovic fell to his first defeat at the Australian Open in a staggering 2,195 days as he was defeated by Jannik Sinner on Friday, 6-1 6-2 6-7(6-8) 6-3.
The 22-year-old Sinner will now contest the first grand slam final of his career having ended Djokovic’s bid for an 11th title in Melbourne.
It also means that Djokovic’s pursuit of an outright record 25th grand slam title is put on hold after he was outplayed by the Italian across their three hour, 22-minute contest.
Sinner, who dropped his first set of the tournament in Friday’s semifinal, is the youngest male finalist at the Australian Open since Djokovic won the title in 2008 and will face either Daniil Medvedev or Alexander Zverev in Sunday’s showpiece.
“It was a very, very tough match,” Sinner said in his on-court interview. “I started off really well. He missed for two sets, I felt like he was not feeling that great on court, so I just tried to keep pushing.”
After cruising through the first two sets, Sinner had a match point in the third-set tie-break but was unable to take advantage.
Instead, Djokovic won the next three points and looked to mount a comeback in the fourth set.
However, the Serb was broken at 2-1 having held a 40-0 lead, and from there, Sinner was always in control of the set and could see out the biggest victory of his career to date.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
