Defending champion Jannik Sinner needed three hours and thirty minutes and two separate comebacks from a set down to defeat 50th-ranked Miomir Kecmanovic in five sets on Centre Court Monday, opening his Wimbledon title defense with a result far more dramatic than the occasion’s honorary status would have suggested.
The top-ranked Sinner won 4-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 in the match traditionally reserved for the previous year’s men’s singles champion to open the tournament. It was his first grass-court match of the season, and he acknowledged feeling tight in the opening stages as he adjusted to the surface after a month spent away from official competition.
A scare on the grass and a bloodied shoe
The match took an alarming turn early in the third set when Sinner lost his footing attempting to change direction, falling hard onto the grass and grasping at his hip area in apparent pain before quickly rising and continuing to play. The fall came in the same game that had produced one of the match’s most memorable points, a delicate sliced drop shot from Sinner that Kecmanovic did not even attempt to chase.
As the match progressed, observers noticed Sinner appeared to be bleeding through his shoe. He downplayed the issue afterward, characterizing it as a minor toenail problem that looked more serious than it was rather than anything connected to the earlier fall.
A third set that nearly got away from him
Kecmanovic mounted a serious challenge in the third-set tiebreaker, saving a set point with an extended rally that again sent Sinner to the ground as he scrambled to retrieve consecutive difficult shots. The two players shared a moment of mutual respect at the changeover after the marathon point, acknowledging the level of effort each had produced.
Sinner ultimately lost the tiebreaker and the set after a backhand sailed long, giving Kecmanovic a two-sets-to-one lead and putting the defending champion in a genuinely precarious position in his opening match. Sinner later described the third set as difficult to accept given how the match had been shaping up before that point.
He responded by tightening his game considerably across the final two sets, closing out the match in front of a crowd that included several notable spectators in the Royal Box.
Context for a complicated comeback
The match marked Sinner’s first official appearance since his French Open campaign was disrupted by a dizziness episode during a heat wave in Paris, where he was eliminated in five sets in the second round despite having been one game away from a straight-sets victory. Monday’s conditions in London were far more comfortable, with sunny skies and moderate temperatures, removing the heat-related concerns that had affected his previous tournament.
Sinner enters this year’s tournament as a heavy favorite given the absence of his primary rival, who is missing Wimbledon due to a wrist injury after losing last year’s final to Sinner. He acknowledged feeling the particular pressure that comes with the defending champion’s traditional opening match assignment, describing the walk onto Centre Court under those circumstances as carrying a different kind of nervous energy tied to the court’s history and prestige.
Sinner produced 72 winners and 31 aces compared to Kecmanovic’s 20 winners and single ace, though he also committed considerably more unforced errors over the course of the match. The two players embraced warmly at the net afterward, having extended Sinner’s perfect career record against Kecmanovic to five matches while delivering a contest far more competitive than their previous meetings.
