Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner’s rivalry resumes at Wimbledon as history awaits

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Wimbledon men’s semifinals.

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London — It’s just before 2 a.m. local time, and Jannik Sinner is as annoyed as he has ever been after a defeat.

He has just lost to Novak Djokovic in five sets at the Australian Open, and he knows he has let a big opportunity go. Sinner, who converted just two of 18 break points in their semifinal, and none of the eight he had in the deciding set, covers his face with his hands and looks into the distance as his news conference begins.

“Yeah, it hurts for sure,” he says.

With Sinner having won their previous five meetings, Djokovic’s 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 win in January built on relentless attack and aggressiveness, shook up the tennis world that night and early morning in Melbourne.

Sinner, 24, had been outlasted in a match of over four hours by someone 15 years his senior. Djokovic, who in the quarterfinals had been comprehensively outplayed and was two sets down before another Italian, Lorenzo Musetti, had to retire due to injury, had found a top level that could once again defeat one of the best players in the world.

Djokovic, 39, and Sinner have not played each other in the six months since, but on Friday they will contest a Wimbledon semifinal that has the feeling of a final. Djokovic is a seven-time winner here, Sinner is the world No. 1 and reigning champion. Whoever wins will be playing someone contesting their first Wimbledon final — the wild card world No. 114 Arthur Féry or Alexander Zverev, who before this year had never gone beyond the fourth round.

The wider stakes could scarcely be higher. Djokovic probably has the best chance he’ll get to win a 25th Grand Slam title, the final career target that has remained tantalizingly out of reach since he won the 2023 U.S. Open. Since then, Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have established a Grand Slam duopoly, and thwarted Djokovic numerous times.

With Alcaraz out injured, and Sinner not at his best this tournament, Djokovic knows that on a surface where he is so superior to the rest of the field, he has to take this opportunity. He’ll be 40 by the time the next Wimbledon rolls around.

Sinner, whose serve has propped up his mixed baseline performances this fortnight, will also see this as a match he absolutely has to win. The Australian Open loss was tough, but two consecutive defeats to Djokovic could provoke some soul-searching, given how he had started to dominate the head-to-head. In the past three of those five consecutive wins against Djokovic, he didn’t drop a single set, having earlier gone two full matches against Djokovic without facing a break point.

A defeat on Friday would also leave Sinner holding none of the four Grand Slam titles, something that feels barely believable given how much he has dominated everywhere else over the past year. According to the live numbers, Sinner has a 4,090-point lead at the top of the rankings, and has won the last six ATP Masters 1000 events, the rung below the majors. He has also won the ATP Tour Finals in that time. All of which speaks to his peerless consistency — a level that even Alcaraz can’t match.

But it’s the Slams where players are ultimately judged, and for Sinner, the wait for a fifth title has been surprisingly long. During that time, he has seen Alcaraz win a sixth and seventh, completing the career Grand Slam in the process. Djokovic puts so little emphasis on anything outside the majors these days that he’s played four non-Slam matches all year, winning two and losing two.

Friday brings with it other sub-plots. Temperatures are expected to be around 88F (31C) in southwest London, raising the specter of Sinner’s struggles with heat and intense sun. At the French Open in May, heat and an illness caused him to collapse from a seemingly impregnable position, losing to Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cerúndolo.

Sinner was in similarly dire straits because of extreme weather conditions at the Australian Open in January, when he was saved by the tournament’s heat rule when trailing Eliot Spizzirri of the U.S., and at the Shanghai Masters in October, when he was forced to retire against Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands and had to be helped off the court. Before this summer’s tournament, he said that he and his team have changed how they prepare, hoping to avoid a similar scenario.

Djokovic doesn’t love the heat either, but he does thrive on long matches. As recently as Tuesday, he beat Félix Auger-Aliassime, 14 years his junior and the No. 3 seed, in five sets and more than five hours of grueling combat. Djokovic has won all seven of his career matches that have gone beyond four hours and 55 minutes, while Sinner is yet to win one that has gone beyond three hours and 50 minutes.

Sinner’s five-set record is also a difficult 7-12, though the caliber of player required to take him to such lengths is so high that losing such matches becomes more likely. Last week, he snapped a streak of five consecutive defeats in five-set matches, beating Serbian Miomir Kecmanović in the first round.

Djokovic’s durability may also have been compromised by the win over Auger-Aliassime Tuesday, the joint-longest of his Wimbledon career. He may have beaten Sinner in four hours and nine minutes in January, but Musetti’s retirement and a walkover win over Jakub Menšík of the Czech Republic in the previous round meant that he played much less tennis than he would ordinarily have had to before a Grand Slam semifinal.

Djokovic joked after beating Auger-Aliassime that he wished his matches only lasted 90 minutes, like the other 39-year-old performing sporting miracles on Tuesday, Lionel Messi. To win, Djokovic will surely have to lean into the serving potency and increased aggressiveness that have underpinned his late-career successes — including when these two last met.

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