World No. 1 Jannik Sinner has exhibited tremendous bouncebackability in his seamless waltz to his maiden Wimbledon final, recovering from the harrowing French Open heartbreak at the hands of a tenacious Carlos Alcaraz in Paris last month. The 23-year-old has braved an elbow injury and stupefied opponents with his unfettered on-court movement and pulverising returns.
Three-time winner John McEnroe said he hadn’t seen the Italian move so smoothly ever before, showering high praise, drawing comparisons to 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic. On Friday, Sinner thumped Djokovic for the second successive Grand Slam semi-final since Roland Garros, leaving a crushing 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 blow to the seven-time Wimbledon winner.
“Never have I seen Sinner move and cover the court so effectively,” said McEnroe on BBC.
“Not just the back court, but the forecourt. To be able to come up and produce little lobs. It’s not something you typically see from Sinner. He’s got to be feeling really good.
“We were watching a better version of Novak Djokovic playing himself. Doing the exact same things that made Novak get to that pantheon of the sport,” McEnroe added.
Despite winning the SW19 Championships for the last two years, McEnroe has sounded out a warning to Alcaraz, stressing that the Spaniard will still need to bring his absolute best to gun down Sinner in their proposed second meeting in London, four years after Sinner took him out in a four-set R16 clash.
“When Sinner brings his A game, there’s no one that can beat him – other than Alcaraz.
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“On the other hand, if Alcaraz doesn’t bring his A game, Sinner will win every time. So it’s going to be extremely interesting.”
Having edged past Taylor Fritz in fours sets, Alcaraz admitted that Djokovic’s straight-sets loss to Sinner was indeed surprising.
“Yeah, that match surprised me a little bit obviously. Winning Novak is a really difficult challenge, really difficult things to do. So beating him quite easily, so it’s even harder,” the 22-year-old Alcaraz told in the press conference.
“But the level that Jannik’s playing, it’s really high, as always. I think he doesn’t get down his level in the matches. It’s unbelievable what he can do on a tennis court.”
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McEnroe’s young American compatriot Ben Shelton too hailed Sinner’s otherwordly levels after their quarter-final meeting.
“It’s frustrating. There are a lot of things. It’s two very different players (Sinner and Alcara) and challenges. With Sinner, whom I’ve played the most, his ball speed is really high. I’ve never seen anything like it. You don’t see anything like it when you’re going through the draw. When you play him it’s almost like things are in 2x speed. I’m usually pretty good at adjusting to that speed. It’s difficult when a guy is hitting the ball that big that consistently off both wings and serving the way he is,” Shelton said, hailing Sinner’s frenetic levels of ball-striking.
