Key events
In doubles news, Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury retained their ATP Finals title earlier on, beating Marcel Granollers and Marc Ceballos 6-3, 6-4 in the final.
Tumaini Carayol
Andy Murray has been forced to withdraw from the Davis Cup and end his season after suffering a shoulder injury in training. He had been training at the National Tennis Centre this week and preparing for the final event of the year when he suffered the injury. Great Britain face Serbia on Thursday in Málaga at the Final 8 knockout stage of the Davis Cup finals.
Rupert Neate
Forget the tennis. A much bigger match will take place in Wimbledon next week as the All England Lawn Tennis Club takes on another local council over its plan to build an 8,000-seat stadium on a Grade II*-listed park.
The AELTC will on Tuesday night attempt to convince Wandsworth’s planning committee to vote through its proposal to build the 10-storey show court and 38 other grass courts on Wimbledon Park. Campaigners have described the proposals as an “industrial tennis complex”.
“I predict Sinner to win,” emails Abdul. “He has the momentum.”
After losing the semi-final, Medvedev predicted that Sinner – if he keeps up this form – will become world No 1 and win multiple grand slams. So perhaps Medvedev would agree with you, Abdul.
Then again, it’s Djokovic isn’t it? I didn’t see the semi-finals but it sounds like he fairly blew Alcaraz off the court.
For me, a tough one to call, but a match that both players will want to win. More searing insight coming up soon.
Will Sinner repeat the feat of earlier in the week and beat Djokovic a second time? Or will the Serb grind his precocious opponent into the dust? You can email me with your predictions.
This final, by the way, is best of three sets, just like all the other matches in the tournament.
Djokovic, it is fair to say, was not a happy customer on Thursday afternoon after he beat the alternate, Hubert Hurkacz, in three sets. The dropped set meant that qualification was put out of his hands and he proceeded to give some distinctly snippy post-match interviews. But it turned out all right when Rune was defeated by Sinner later that night.
The tale of the tape: Djokovic leads Sinner 3-1 in their head-to-head.
Djokovic won at the Monte Carlo Masters in 2021, in two sets, then at Wimbledon in 2022 and 2023. The quarter-final in 2022 was a five-setter when Djokovic hit back from two sets down in typically tenacious style. The semi-final this year was in straight sets.
But Sinner, of course, had Djokovic’s number earlier this week, which is what makes today’s match so fascinating.
Australia have just beaten India by six wickets to win the ODI Cricket World Cup!
Preamble
Novak Djokovic has today’s opponent, Jannik Sinner, to thank for the fact he’s still here. Following the Serb’s group stage defeat by the Italian, Djokovic would have been eliminated had Holger Rune beaten Sinner on Thursday night.
As things turned out the home favourite won in three, which meant Djokovic joined him, Daniil Medvedev and Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals of this season-closing event in northern Italy. Djokovic blew away Alcaraz (the man who beat him in an epic Wimbledon final) while the Russian, Medvedev, was dispatched by the increasingly confident Sinner.
Which brings us to today’s final. Djokovic already has the Australian Open, French Open and US Open in the trophy cabinet this year. Can the world No 4 find a way past the irrepressible Serb and prompt a smattering of erroneous ‘changing of the guard’ headlines? We’re about to find out.
Match start: 5pm UK time