Given a new lease on life at the Nitto ATP Finals when Jannik Sinner beat Holger Rune in the final Green Group round-robin match, Novak Djokovic made the most of it by beating Carlos Alcaraz 6-3, 6-2 during semifinal action on Saturday night. Djokovic set up a final showdown against Sinner after one hour and 28 minutes.
Sinner kicked off the semifinals by treating his home crowd to yet another victory inside the Pala Alpitour. The 22-year-old Italian improved to 4-0 this week with a 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-1 defeat of Daniil Medvedev that lasted two hours and 29 minutes.
“[It is an] incredible feeling,” Sinner assured. “It was a really tough match today. I felt that he was playing more aggressively, especially in the first set. Somehow I made the break and from that point I felt better. The second set was really tight but then he played a very good tiebreak. In the third set I just tried to stay a bit more aggressive and mixing up my game a little bit. I am happy to be in the final.”
And what a final matchup it is.
Djokovic and Sinner also faced each other in the group stage on Tuesday, when the world No. 4 pulled off a 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-2 upset after three hours and nine minutes. That marked Sinner’s first win in four tries against Djokovic, although he did push the top-ranked Serb to five sets at Wimbledon in 2022.
