By Martyn Herman
LONDON (Reuters) -Top seed Jannik Sinner ensured Novak Djokovic will be absent from a Wimbledon men’s singles final for the first time in eight years after handing the Serbian great a brutal Centre Court battering on Friday.
Italian Sinner lost both his previous Wimbledon duels with Djokovic but a devastating display of power and precision proved too much for the seven-time champion who looked all of his 38 years as he subsided to a humbling 6-3 6-3 6-4 defeat.
In his first Wimbledon final the 23-year-old Sinner will face Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in a mouth-watering repeat of their recent French Open humdinger which the Italian lost after battling for more than five hours, squandering three championship points.
“I don’t know what to expect, you saw the last final and you never know,” Sinner, just the third Italian to reach a Wimbledon singles final and hoping to become his country’s first champion,” said on court.
“It’s an honour to share the court with Carlos, we push each other to the limit. Hopefully it will be a good match like the last one, maybe not better, I don’t think that’s possible.”
Djokovic, bidding to equal Roger Federer’s men’s record eight Wimbledon titles, had not lost a semi-final since Federer got the better of him in 2012.
But it seemed Father Time has finally caught up with the 24-time Grand Slam champion as he looked defenceless in the opening two sets as a sublime Sinner dropped only six points on serve.
He briefly stemmed the tide in the third set to move 3-0 ahead but it proved merely a blip for top seed Sinner who nipped any hope of a famous comeback in the bud.
Djokovic appeared to struggle physically in the closing stages after needing treatment and Sinner wasted no time in putting him out of his misery in less than two hours.
Sinner joined in the applause as Djokovic left Centre Court, giving the cheering crowd a thumbs up, with question marks about whether he will ever return.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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