Defending champion Jannik Sinner kept his Wimbledon title defense firmly on course on Tuesday, defeating Jan-Lennard Struff 7-5, 7-6, 6-3 to reach his third Wimbledon semifinal and extend a remarkable run of form that has seen him win 14 consecutive sets since coming from behind in his opening match.
The 24-year-old top seed was not perfect against Struff, making 26 unforced errors and needing to save a set point in the second-set tiebreaker, but he found his level at the critical moments and dominated the final set to advance comfortably. He served 16 aces in the match, bringing his tournament total to 97, already the most he has served in a single major across his career.
A match with historical context on both sides
Struff, who turned 36 during the tournament, became the oldest man to reach a major quarterfinal for the first time in the open era. His run to the last eight was one of the tournament’s more surprising storylines, advancing without dropping a set before facing the defending champion. He gave Sinner a more difficult opening set than the score suggested, beginning more aggressively and forcing the Italian to raise his level before the match turned.
Sinner’s 25th career win at the All England Club placed him in historical company, joining a short list of men who have accumulated that many Wimbledon victories within their first six appearances at the tournament. The list includes some of the most accomplished grass-court players in the sport’s history, and reaching it at 24 with more appearances ahead of him suggests the total will continue to grow substantially.
Managing the Paris question and the heat
The physical dimension of Tuesday’s match carried additional significance given Sinner’s troubling experience at the French Open, where heat-related difficulties contributed to a second-round collapse that raised questions about his ability to perform under extreme conditions. With temperatures at Wimbledon reaching into the mid-to-upper 80s Fahrenheit during Tuesday’s early afternoon matches, those questions had a real-time answer to produce.
Sinner used ice towels on changeovers throughout the match and addressed the Paris situation directly when asked, saying his team had spent significant time after Roland Garros trying to understand what had gone wrong and that he felt genuinely comfortable on the physical side throughout the Struff match. He framed that comfort as a meaningful step forward rather than simply a relief, suggesting the work done since Paris had produced a tangible result.
What the Djokovic semifinal represents
The semifinal pairing of Sinner and Djokovic will be their third at Wimbledon in four years, with each player having won once in the previous two meetings. Sinner defeated Djokovic in last year’s semifinal on the way to claiming the title, while Djokovic won their earlier Wimbledon semifinal encounter two years before that. Djokovic advanced to Tuesday’s final four after surviving a five-hour-and-fifteen-minute quarterfinal that was confirmed as the longest in Wimbledon history.
Sinner holds a winning head-to-head record against Djokovic, one of only two players who have faced the Serbian seven-time champion at least five times and come out ahead more often than not. That record will be tested again on Friday on the surface where Djokovic has been most dominant across his career and where he is chasing a record-extending eighth title and what would be an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam overall.
For Sinner, the prize is more straightforward. A win on Friday puts him in the final and two wins from back-to-back Wimbledon titles at 24.
