Sinner and Djokovic greet each other after the doubles match at Martín Carpena.VIOLETA SANTOS MOURA (Portal)
Following the whims of fate, Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner have taken opposite paths in a period of less than a week: the one who laughed six days ago regrets it now and vice versa. The first triumphed in Turin and the Italian was sad at home, who now finds consolation for the defeat in the Masters Cup final with a full-fledged personal revenge. The bond is missing, Innichen thinks, but no one can take away what has been done so far. This undeniable season of Nole leaves a definitive and capitalized prominence in the denouement, which must definitely be taken into account in view of the future. Italy will play Australia for the Davis Cup title with a 2-1 win over Serbia today (4 p.m., Movistar+). And who would have thought that he would do it after the one who rarely forgives, Djokovic, did it three times this Saturday.
There were three match points that the number one had, but he failed to score in the second singles move (6:2, 2:6 and 7:5 after Kecmanovic defeated Lorenzo Musetti 6:7 (7), 6:2 and 6) . -0 at the start of the series) and the subsequent doubles result (6-3 and 6-4) condemned Serbia and qualified Italy, which had not played a final since 1998, when it lost to Sweden at the Milan Forum. on sound. A lot has changed since then; So much so that today there is no trace of the Swedes left. The competition has a different format and will be held for the second year in a row at the Martín Carpena in Málaga, with the public witnessing at the same time the pain of the king and the joy – always thoughtful, always elegant – of the effervescent sinner. The Italian pardoned Djokovic in Turin last week, avoiding the group stage biscotto that would have eliminated the Serb, and now emerges as the star of these finals.
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“Personally it is a big disappointment because I take responsibility after these three match points,” Djokovic said in the conference room. “But that’s sport. When you lose, when you play for your country, the feeling of bitterness is greater. Jannik played very well in both singles and doubles, so I can only congratulate Italy on such a performance,” continued the Belgrade native, who cannot complete the course as planned. After winning three major titles, single-handedly topping the men’s all-time list and being crowned champion for the seventh time, he felt a debt to Davis that he could not repay. In this way, only the success of 2010, when the Serbs reached the top of the competition for the only time, will appear in their history.
Nole had not lost a singles duel in the Davis Cup since 2011 with 21 wins in a row until good old Sinner crossed his path this Saturday, an increasingly accomplished and impressive tennis player. The Transalpine wasn’t even born in 1998 and the Italian Salad Bowl of 1976 sounds like a distant memory when its predecessors (Panatta, Barazzutti, Bertorelli and Zugarelli) defeated Chile in Santiago. But here a player is called upon to leave his mark. “He has one of the most powerful shots on the track. I know his quality, but I thought that I might weaken my performance in doubles. “It wasn’t like that,” said Balkan, who avoided talking about fatigue because, he said, “it would sound like an excuse.”
The fact is that no one has beaten him in two consecutive weeks since Scots Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal in 2008 and Mikhail Youzhny the year before. This time these three game balls flew and the dream disappeared. Kecmanovic’s promising intervention at the start of the afternoon was of no use; After these three options were wasted, the 5:4 and the 0:40 in the second set, Sinner countered with a break in the next game and redeemed himself at the end of the day from what happened not so long ago at the Pala Alpitour in Turin . Italy therefore abounds in these good times that its tennis shoes are experiencing. The grassroots project’s ambitious investments in recent years have given it a significant boost and it also proudly boasts its character: Sinner.
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