melbourne
\nDefending champion Jannik Sinner blew past Ben Shelton 7-6 (7\/2), 6-2, 6-2 in the Australian Open semi-finals on Friday to set up a showdown with Alexander Zverev for the title. The top-ranked Italian will face the German second seed, who went through to Sunday\u2019s final when Novak Djokovic retired injured from their last-four clash.
\nSinner had to save two set points in a tight opening act, but once he took it on a tiebreak he raced past the 22-year-old in 2hr 36min on Rod Laver Arena, despite cramping late in the match.
\nThe centre court crowd had been disappointed earlier when Djokovic called it a day after losing a gruelling first set against Zverev, leaving his bid for a record 25th Grand Slam crown in tatters.
\nThe 37-year-old Serbian great\u2019s upper left leg was heavily taped and, after he shook hands, he departed to some boos after going down 7-6 (7\/5).
\nDjokovic hinted that he may have played his last Australian Open. \u201cThere is a chance. Who knows?\u201d Djokovic said when asked if he may have graced the Melbourne Park courts for the last time.
\n\u201cI normally like to come to Australia to play. I\u2019ve had the biggest success in my career here. So if I\u2019m fit, healthy, motivated, I don\u2019t see a reason why I wouldn\u2019t come,\u201d he added.
\nDjokovic has now gone five Grand Slams without winning the title he needs to surpass Margaret Court\u2019s 24 and become the all-time leader.
\n\u201cI actually thought I played really well, as well as I played the last 12 months,\u201d he said of his Melbourne run. \u201cI liked my chances if I was physically fit and ready to battle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
melbourne Defending champion Jannik Sinner blew past Ben Shelton 7-6 (7\/2), 6-2, 6-2 in the Australian Open semi-finals on Friday to set up a showdown with Alexander Zverev for the title. The top-ranked Italian will face the German second seed, who went through to Sunday\u2019s final when Novak Djokovic retired injured from their last-four clash. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76093,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76082\/revisions\/76093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}