Novak Djokovic sets up Wimbledon semifinal against Jannik Sinner with Flavio Cobolli win

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THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Novak Djokovic will get another crack at Jannik Sinner at a Grand Slam, after defeating Flavio Cobolli in four sets to reach a 14th Wimbledon semifinal.

Djokovic, who is looking for a record-equaling eighth Wimbledon title and a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam title, battled and then surged past the Italian No. 22 seed Cobolli 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 to set up Friday’s date with Sinner. A fall on his second match point, after a Cobolli forehand clipped the net and wrongfooted Djokovic, looked to have put a bad exclamation mark on proceedings, but in his on-court interview, Djokovic played down the slip.

In his news conference, he said he hoped to be fine come Friday, despite describing the fall as “nasty” and “very awkward”. On facing Sinner, Djokovic said: “You couldn’t ask for a bigger challenge, for sure, for myself. I look forward to it. I’ll do my best to get ready and perform my best there.

“Yeah, it’s going to take the best of me at the moment to beat Jannik. I mean, I know that.”

The world No. 1 has dominated Djokovic in their recent meetings, winning the last four, including last month’s French Open semifinal in straight sets. But the match was closer than that scoreline suggests, and playing on grass should be to Djokovic’s advantage. Especially if Sinner is still experiencing issues with the elbow he hurt in Monday’s match against Grigor Dimitrov, when he trailed by two sets to love but won by retirement

Not that Djokovic comes into the match without concerns of his own. After toiling against Alex de Minaur in the fourth round Monday, Djokovic again lost the first set here. He served for it against Cobolli but was broken, and then lost a tight tiebreak. Cobolli might have been overawed by facing Djokovic, having described him as his “biggest idol” in the build-up before practicing with Djokovic’s son, Stefan, last week, but he went toe-to-toe in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal.

Djokovic has lost the first set in 94 Grand Slam matches, winning 54 of them and losing 40, but 28 of those defeats have come against top-20 players. He is now 23-12 in such matches against men outside the top 20. When he splits the first two sets his record goes up to 102-18, compared to 7-26 when two sets down.

So the second set felt key, and Cobolli suffered a big letdown after taking the opener, as happens so often to Djokovic’s opponents at majors. The Italian is a good friend of Carlos Alcaraz and the Spaniard noted at the French Open that he shares his penchant for not always making the most sensible shot choices. He can be similarly up and down too, and after playing at such a high level, Cobolli dipped badly for around half an hour. He lost seven straight games, including a run of 14 from 16 points, as Djokovic reasserted himself in the match. Trailing 2-0 in the third, it looked as though Cobolli might be about to check out completely, especially as he required treatment on his knee.

Then Djokovic’s vulnerabilities reemerged. Cobolli started redlining and there wasn’t a lot that the seven-time champion could do. As against De Minaur, he was also losing a lot of the longer rallies. Djokovic has evolved into a serve-and-first-strike player as he has aged, relying on an ever-more-accurate serve and aggressiveness from the ground.

He was getting irritable as well, chucking his racket up in frustration after Cobolli held for 4-3 and fighting the urge to whack his chair when he went to sit down. He was finding the sun particularly problematic and was in one of his “the world’s against me” moods.

That said, he quickly found his best level, characteristically using his irritation as fuel. Having broken Cobolli for 6-5, Djokovic produced the kind of point that only he can. He looked like a sitting duck with Cobolli up at the net and sizing up a forehand, but he anticipated exactly where his opponent was going to go and met it with a lob that looped towards the baseline. Cobolli retrieved it but Djokovic nailed a tricky overhead, so often his Achilles’ heel, before winning the point with a feathered backhand drop-shot winner. It was the kind of brilliance that has been breaking the resistance of his opponents for the best part of two decades.

Cobolli reacted well. He held on in a couple of close service games, and had the crowd cheering his name as the fourth set reached its conclusion. Fabio Fognini, the former world No. 9 who announced his retirement Wednesday, cheered his compatriot on from the player box. A devastating shotmaker himself, Fognini liked what he was seeing. And the crowd wanted a fifth set as the sun started to disappear.

Djokovic had other ideas. He broke for 5-4 when Cobolli duffed an easy volley, and served out the match after more than three hours. There was the late scare on his second match point, when a Cobolli forehand wrongfooted Djokovic and clipped the tape, sending him sprawling to the ground, but Djokovic got up to win the next two points.

And with them, a date on Friday with the world’s best player. “So I get another opportunity,” he says. “For me, this is what counts actually the most… Being in the last stages of Grand Slams and playing against the best player in the world right now. Him next to Alcaraz are the leaders of tennis today, men’s tennis.”

It wasn’t a perfect performance against Cobolli, but the seven-time champion is where he wants to be. In yet another semifinal, and with the chance to exact revenge on a player who has been his nemesis for the last couple of years. But this time, they will play on a court he’s turned into his living room over the last 14 years.

(Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images) 

This news was originally published on this post .

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