Novak Djokovic laments ‘one of the worst’ performances at a grand slam

Novak Djokovic fell to his first defeat at the Australian Open in a staggering 2,195 days as he was defeated by Jannik Sinner on Friday, 6-1 6-2 6-7(6-8) 6-3.

The 22-year-old Sinner will now contest the first grand slam final of his career having ended Djokovic’s bid for an 11^th title in Melbourne.

It also means that Djokovic’s pursuit of an outright record 25th grand slam title is put on hold after he was outplayed by the Italian across their three hour, 22-minute contest.

Sinner, who dropped his first set of the tournament in Friday’s semifinal, is the youngest male finalist at the Australian Open since Djokovic won the title in 2008 and will face Russian Daniil Medvedev in Sunday’s showpiece.

“It was a very, very tough match,” Sinner said in his on-court interview. “I started off really well. He missed for two sets, I felt like he was not feeling that great on court, so I just tried to keep pushing.”

You have to go all the way back to his fourth-round defeat against Chung Hyeon in 2018 for the previous time that Djokovic lost in Melbourne – 33 matches ago.

‘Nole’ later gave a very frank assessment of his performance against Sinner, which was also his first semifinal defeat at the Australian Open.

“He outplayed me completely today,” Djokovic told reporters. “Look, I was, in a way, shocked with my level, in a bad way. There was not much I was doing right in the first two sets.

“I guess this is one of the worst grand slam matches I’ve ever played – at least that I remember. Not a very pleasant feeling playing this way. But at the same time, credit to him for doing everything better than me in every aspect of the game.”

Djokovic was uncharacteristically sloppy in the opening exchanges and produced 29 unforced errors across the first two sets. Sinner, by contrast, had only eight, and his accuracy and aggression earned him a 2-0 lead in just an hour and 13 minutes.