{"id":455849,"date":"2025-07-09T20:39:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=455849"},"modified":"2025-07-09T22:13:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:13:39","slug":"nasty-fall-threatens-to-derail-djokovics-sinner-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=455849","title":{"rendered":"'Nasty' fall threatens to derail Djokovic's Sinner meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least Novak Djokovic<\/a> could laugh about it immediately afterward.<\/p>\n

Yes, he took what he called a \u201cnasty\u201d and \u201cawkward\u201d fall on his second match point at Wimbledon.<\/a> Yes, he slid into the splits and ended up face-down on the centre court grass. And, yes, those sorts of things aren't ideal for a 38-year-old seeking an unprecedented 25th grand slam title.<\/p>\n

Still, Djokovic dusted himself off and took the next two points, reaching the semi-finals at the All England Club for a men's-record 14th time with a 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 victory over No.22 seed Flavio Cobolli to set up a showdown against No.1 Jannik Sinner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cObviously, (my) body is not the same today like it was before,\u201d Djokovic said at his news conference, \u201cso I guess the real impact or effect of what happened, I will feel tomorrow.<\/p>\n

"So let's see. I'm hoping in the next 24, 48 hours, that the severity of … what happened is not too bad, that I'll be able to play at my best and free of pain in two days."<\/p>\n

That's when he will take on three-time major champion Sinner, who didn\u2019t play like someone dealing with an injured right elbow while using terrific serving and his usual booming forehand to beat 10th-seeded Ben Shelton 7-6(2), 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt's going to take the best of me at the moment to beat Jannik. I mean, I know that,\u201d said Djokovic, who has lost his last four meetings with Sinner, including in the Roland-Garros semi-finals last month.<\/p>\n

Djokovic is 2-0 against Sinner at Wimbledon, eliminating him in the 2023 semi-finals and 2022 quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Watch all the action from Wimbledon 2025<\/strong><\/em> live & on-demand on Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, with two courts in 4K UHD. Coverage of select matches free-to-air on Nine<\/strong><\/em> and streaming on 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Against Cobolli \u2014 like Sinner, a 23-year-old from Italy \u2014 the late-match tumble was not the only thing that was far from smooth for Djokovic. He served for the opening set at 5-3 but got broken at love. He later was a point from owning that set before first-time major quarter-finalist Cobolli came through.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Djokovic did stretches and breathing exercises at changeovers. He whacked his shoe with his racquet after one miss in the fourth set. He seemed bothered at times by the bright sun above centre court.<\/p>\n

He also showed off all of his considerable skills, accumulating 13 aces, holding in 19 of 21 service games, using a drop-shot-lob-drop-shot combination to take one point and limiting his unforced errors to 22 \u2014 half as many as Cobolli.<\/p>\n

Djokovic will try to reach his seventh consecutive final at the All England Club and get closer to equaling Roger Federer's men's mark of eight trophies there. The other men's semi-final is two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, who defeated Djokovic in the 2023 and 2024 finals, against Taylor Fritz.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The women's semi-finals are Aryna Sabalenka vs. Amanda Anisimova, and Iga Swiatek vs Belinda Bencic.<\/p>\n

Against Shelton at No.1 court, Sinner wore a white sleeve on his right arm with strips of tape visible underneath \u2014 one above the elbow, one below it \u2014 after he was hurt when he fell in the opening game of his fourth-round match against Grigor Dimitrov.<\/p>\n

Sinner, the runner-up to Alcaraz at Roland-Garros, had an MRI exam on Tuesday and initially cancelled a practice session that day but did hit some balls in a 20-minute session at an indoor court later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are in a match with a lot of tension, you try to not think about it,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cIt has improved a lot from yesterday to today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He played as though nothing were amiss, grabbing 27 of 29 service points in the first set while accumulating a total of 15 winners to just one unforced error.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t go into a match thinking that the guy\u2019s not going to be at 100 per cent,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cHis ball was coming off pretty big today, so I didn\u2019t see any difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelton stayed right with him until 2-all in the tiebreaker. That's when Sinner surged in front, helped by a double-fault and four consecutive forehand errors by Shelton.<\/p>\n

At the outset of the second set, Shelton finally made some headway in a return game, getting a pair of break points at 15-40.<\/p>\n

On one, Sinner produced a forehand winner. On the other, he pounded a 212km\/h serve \u2014 his fastest of the match \u2014 and rushed forward, getting to deuce when Shelton\u2019s backhand pass attempt found the net. That was followed by a 189km\/h ace and a 201km\/h service winner.<\/p>\n

Those were Shelton's only break chances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least Novak Djokovic could laugh about it immediately afterward. Yes, he took what he called a \u201cnasty\u201d and \u201cawkward\u201d fall on his second match […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":455851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455856,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455849\/revisions\/455856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/455851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}