No trace of gratitude
Djokovic crowns sensational year with record title
November 19, 2023, 8:05 p.m
Novak Djokovic is unstoppable. In the preliminary round of the ATP Finals, the Serb is threatened with elimination, but he only progresses thanks to Jannik Sinner’s help. In the final the two face each other again and the tennis dominator confidently prevails.
With an impressive demonstration of power, Novak Djokovic won the ATP Finals for the seventh time. The 36-year-old Serb won the final in Turin against crowd favorite Jannik Sinner 6:3, 6:3 and is now the sole record winner in the annual final of the eight best tennis professionals.
The world number one converted his first match point after 1:43 hours, crowning a remarkable season with three Grand Slam titles in Melbourne, Paris and New York. Only at Wimbledon did Djokovic have to admit defeat to the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in an epic five-set match in the final. After his victory, Djokovic hugged his two children and celebrated.
Sinner won in three sets against Djokovic in the group phase on Tuesday in a high-class match that lasted more than three hours. Djokovic only made it through the preliminary round because the Italian had also won against the young Danish star Holger Rune, trained by Boris Becker, at the end of the group phase.
Djokovic ends the first set in a hurry
But there was no sign of Djokovic’s gratitude in the final. Quite the opposite: The record Grand Slam champion gave Sinner, who was previously unbeaten in this tournament, a lesson. Powerful, dominant, fully concentrated – at times you could almost see a class difference between Djokovic and Sinner.
After just 38 minutes, Djokovic took the first set. Sinner looked desperately at his team in the stands. But Djokovic, who had already outclassed Alcaraz in two sets in the semifinals, was simply unstoppable that evening. In the second round, the world number one immediately managed another break.
The Italian fans tried to push Sinner again with chants, but that didn’t help either. With the score at 3:2, the Italian missed two break chances that could have brought him back into the match. But Djokovic survived this small phase of weakness and was no longer deterred on the way to the title.