by Gaia Piccardi, sent to London
To give himself the chance to bring down the colossus on his turf, Sinner will have to be the best version of himself, with the recklessness of a neophyte and the arrogance of a boy. If he frees his arm and clears his mind…
LONDON Let’s stick to the facts, before flying with the imagination. The difference between Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner, today, made up of 23 Grand Slam titles (out of 34 finals), 6 Atp Finals (shared supremacy with Federer), 38 Master 1000 (record), 389 weeks spent at number one in the world (of which 122 consecutive). To zero. The only item in which the 21-year-old red baron (almost 22) can have his say is the Grand Slam semifinal count: 46 to 1. All this to say that facing Djoker in a Major represents the highest challenge that a young aspiring champion may find on its way. And Sinner knows it.
For big companies, they are made up of sudden turns of fate (see Jacobs at the Tokyo Games), of unannounced revolutions (Chang in Paris in 1989), of unimaginable on paper upheavals, made possible by individual courage, by the alignments of the planets, from karma. With the imponderable stuffed inside the Gucci bag that he carries around the courts after asking for a special dispensation in the name of the god of marketing from the notables of the All England Club, Jannik will return to center field on Friday to try to reproduce, better and in full, the half feat of last year, when in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon he flew ahead two sets to zero before cashing in with clenched teeth the overbearing return of Djoker, who would later win the tournament. I learned the lesson – said Jannik after beating the Russian Safiullin not without difficulty -. Certain distractions with Novak I won’t be able to afford, because he and he charges dearly. But compared to 2022, I am different. Grown up, changed.
Like Jannik, we asked him: I’m physically stronger, I can stay on the pitch for many hours without suffering. Mentally, then, I’m in another position. I’m number 8, a top 10, I can handle the pressure of the favorite (and here he certainly wasn’t referring to the match against the Serbian, ed), I’ve already beaten strong players on grass. Very true: Alcaraz right here, at Wimbledon. This year the blue hoisted himself to his best career ranking and to n.5 in the Race that leads to the ATP Finals in Turin, the year-end Masters of which he has – substantially – armored the qualification. In short, another Sinner. But, alas, the usual Djokovic who, at 36, shows no signs of giving up. He has already collected two Majors so far, he dreams of the Grand Slam that no man has achieved since 1969 (it would be an epic feat: who could ever dare to say that the Serbian is not the greatest of all time, then?), he uses the Masters 1000 to training for the Grand Slams, he sips intelligently, clearly launched towards the mission of his life: gaining credit with irrefutable arguments as better than Federer and Nadal, the other two Immortals chased and surpassed.
Difficult to face the hero of Belgrade who feels entrusted with a solemn task. Jannik has a very valuable serve in his arsenal, which often gets him out of trouble but still not the devastating weapon he was destined to be. For the Djoker the best responder of the circuit. I feel better on the pitch, I play the slice without thinking about it, I go to the net more: I hope to be able to use all my shots on Friday Jannik says to himself aloud to convince himself first of all. And that’s good, because without the conviction of being able to turn the world upside down, this game is lost from the start, in the locker room. The precedents (2-0 for the Serbian), in this case leave the time they find. Wimbledon (the central, then) a separate time space, suspended between 1877 and 2023, populated by ghosts and strawberries and applause cadenced with a precise rhythm, in which things are possible that would not even be imaginable elsewhere (see the Ukrainian Svitolina, new mother, who eliminates the number one in the world Swiatek).
To give himself the chance to knock down the colossus on his turf, Sinner will have to be the best version of himself, with the recklessness of the neophyte (for Jannik the first Grand Slam semifinal of his career) and the healthy arrogance of the boy who wants to scrap the veteran. The level shown up to now is not enough: in five rounds the red baron has not found a top 50 (Cerundolo 111, Schwartzman 98, Halys 79, Galan 85, Safiullin 92), now forced to raise the quality of his tennis beyond the stars in a day. He has nothing to lose, his tournament is already triumphant like this. And so if he frees his arm, if he clears his mind, if he believes in Djokovic for an afternoon, if he dares the unthinkable, if he manages to float like a surfer on the electricity of a powerhouse who cheered for him to see the match lengthen, if he relies on the existence that knows exactly what to do for him, maybe… If.
July 12, 2023 (change July 12, 2023 | 23:21)
© breaking latest news