Novak Djokovic has rated his Sinner Semifinal loss at the Australian Open as “one of the worst Grand Slam matches” of his career.
The 24-time Major winner admitted that he was stunned by his subpar level in every department of his game but gauged Sinner’s game as flawless. Djokovic was handed a 4-set defeat by Italian in the semifinals of Australian Open on Friday. It was his first loss at Melbourne Park since 2018 when he was defeated by Hyeon Chung in straight sets and more shockingly, it was also his first ever semifinal loss at the season-opening slam.
The 10-time Australian Open Champion has now lost three of his last four matches against the 22-year-old Italian with the other two defeats coming in ATP Finals and Davis Cup Finals in the same week in last November. Another shocking stat was being the fact that it was the first time in his glittering Grand Slam career that he couldn’t seal a breakpoint. After the 3 hour and 26 minute semifinal clash, Djokovic was brutally honest about the sudden dip in his levels.
“Well, first I want to congratulate Sinner for playing a great match, great tournament so far. He’s deservedly in the finals. He outplayed me completely today,” Djokovic said.
“Look, I was, in a way, shocked with my level, you know, in a bad way. There was not much I was doing right in the first two sets (smiling). Yeah, I guess this is one of the worst Grand Slam matches I’ve ever played. At least that I remember.
“Yeah, not a very pleasant feeling playing this way. But at the same time, you know, credit to him for doing everything better than me, you know, in every aspect of the game.
“I tried, I fought. I managed to kind of raise the level a little bit in the third, saved match point, played a good tiebreak. But again, you know, the fourth set, very bad game to lose, you know, 40-Love up on 1-2, and kind of against the wind a little bit.
“Yeah, just overall the performance-wise level of my tennis was, you know, really not great. I guess in those moments you just try to, you know, find the serenity, but at the same time try to uplift, you know, yourself and your game.
“That’s what I tried, but, you know, and the crowd was great. I think they were really fair towards both players. Lots of support for both Jannik and I. That’s all. You know, congratulations to him.”
The World No. 1, who is regarded by many as the great wall of tennis, was also quizzed about the fact that he was denied even a single breakpoint throughout the high octane battle.
“Yeah, probably that stat says a lot. I mean, first of all, he was serving, he was serving very accurately precise, he was backing his serve very well. Yeah, myself, I just, yeah, I just — it’s hard to describe, you know, everything, I mean, we don’t have that much time,” said Djokovic.
“There’s a lot of negative things that I’ve done on the court today in terms of my game that I’m not really pleased with in return or, you know, movement or forehand, backhand. Everything, you know, was just subpar. So, yeah, he was very dominant. Dominant on his service games.
“Obviously if you serve well and if you don’t face a break point, you know, it plays with the mind of your opponent, meaning you can put more pressure on his service games, my service games in this case, and you kind of swing freely. Yeah, I mean, congrats to him. He just played a flawless match.”