Sinner vs Djokovic: Shanghai Final Recap

merry-go-rounds — net instincts — breaking the sideline

Jannik Sinner defeated Novak Djokovic 7/6 6/3 in the final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Sunday to strengthen his hold on the world number 1 ranking. It was the Italians seventh title of the season from 14 tournaments played. Sinner now levels his H2H with Djokovic at 4-4, having won his last three encounters in a row.

Forehand humming in Shanghai for Sinner.

Sinner has always drawn comparisons with Djokovic. There are several obvious parallels: the lithe physique, the (endorsed) Head Speed racquet, the open-stanced sliding movement, the double-handed backhand. But watching Sinner is also a glimpse of how the prototypical baseliner has evolved in the last decade. Most obvious has been the widespread trend of backswings becoming lower — more merry-go-round and less Ferris wheel — as the racquets got lighter and the game faster across the board.¹ Sinner himself made such a transformation from the juniors to pros off both wings.

From @danilopizzorno’s instagram page — one of the best pages for tennis videos of pros.

I previously compared the backhands of Sinner and Djokovic from their 2023 ATP Finals match recap:

merry-go-round versus Ferris wheel. You can see that Sinner achieves power by getting the racquet head farther back (the tip gets well behind his back leg at the end of the stretch) enabling him to have a long forward swing into the ball, and from well inside the line of the ball, to create a lot of speed and topspin. In contrast, Djokovic creates power by tapping into gravity to build the initial momentum, before pulling forward on the hitting-side of his body. Interestingly, Djokovic once exhibited a more merry-go-round takeback ~ 2015-2016.

But I have always contended that their real difference is in their appetite for aggression. Djokovic — especially the version that first dominated the tour starting in 2011 — was more willing to lean on his movement and counterpunch his way to victories. That changed as he aged and was forced to adapt to the faster modern game. Today the Serb is an aggressive baseliner and precise spot-server, and his last win over Sinner — at last year’s ATP Finals in Turin — was a masterclass in both facets, but particularly the forehand, where he had it averaging near 140 km/h. Early in this match he seemed to have similar intentions:

One little detail of Sinner: he nearly always slices open-stance off his left leg. This makes it harder to create racquet head speed on the slice as you now have your shoulders less turned compared to the right-leg option, meaning the swing length to the ball is reduced.

By contrast, Sinner has always been a wrecking-ball hitter, but also someone continually willing to venture forward and steal time. It didn’t take long to see an example off his own forehand:

That extra metre up the court that Sinner takes on the forehand steals enough time to rush Djokovic and catch him out of position despite his excellent stretch/slide backhand and recovery. The fake approach from Sinner is the reason I think Djoker then misses his step-over backhand.

“All around, every shot he's got in the game…He's improved his serve tremendously. I think that became a big weapon. He's just very aggressive from the baseline, as soon as he's got a shorter ball, he's taking the initiative. Just very solid from forehand and backhand, doesn't make too many mistakes, and just tries to take away the time from the opponent.”

— Djokovic press conference from atptour.com

Taking initiative is definitely a feature of the next crop. Sinner and Alcaraz lead the charge (as they so brilliantly displayed recently in Beijing). There were two similar off-backhands that Djokovic and Sinner played one game apart early in the first set, and the instinct to close the net at the first sign of trouble was on display with Sinner. Djokovic’s career has been just fine letting points reset like the one below; at his best it probably gave him an edge in terms of fatiguing his opponent, but here it allowed his younger and sharper rival to reestablish himself in the rally.

Not apples to apples as Djokovic was further behind the baseline and recovering to centre, but you can see how quick Sinner recognises that Djokovic will slice the ball and jets off to the net. You’ve rarely seen that sort of forecourt anticipation from the Serb throughout his career – latter stages included (I actually think he displayed more of this also very early in his career). Seeing a lot of this forward anticipation in the next gen of players — Alcaraz, Sinner, Rune to name a few.

Rally tactics aside, the first set was brilliant spot-serving from both. Sinner leads the tour in service points won and break points saved, and it’s not just because he has the best forehand and backhand combo on tour; the serve is now a genuine weapon that gets him out of trouble, as it did when serving at 4-5. Djokovic started the game with two chipped returns deep middle, finding a low pass on the first, and weathering the linear Sinner power on the second.

0-30.

Sinner then lasers two serves into the Djokovic forehand corners that go unreturned.

At 30-30 Djokovic again jags back the serve with a deep middle chip, finding himself neutral in a big point; home sweet home. Here’s where Sinner shows his class. He doesn’t get sucked into the linear power game with Djokovic standing a little deeper. Instead, he breaks the sideline with a heavily-spun, short angled forehand crosscourt; the perfect counter to Djokovic’s deep central position:

Did he just hit it better than expected? Maybe

The next point was a wide unreturned serve. Crisis averted. Djokovic hasn’t broken Sinner in their last six sets. Scratch that. Djokovic hasn’t earned a single break point in his last six sets against Sinner.

Both men held to bring us to a tiebreaker. Notably, Sinner has compiled a 23-8 tie-breaker record in 2024 (outrageous) and has won 18 of his last 20 (ludicrous). He started this one well, dipping the return low as Djokovic tried to push the low inside-out forehand volley deep, rather than drop it short in the service box:

Inside-out deep forehand volley down low is probably one of the hardest to hit because your racquet naturally wants to follow a path across the body, which means volleying crosscourt. Great volleyers of this shot tend to finish with the racquet facing up in a waiters table position as the hand extends to provide the length in the volley swing (Pat Rafter was great at that). There’s a volley article I’m working on for the off-season that will go in-depth on this more. The other problem here is the serve doesn’t get wide enough (it passes through the service line, rather than break the singles sideline and stretch Sinner wider) so Sinner never had to cover as much ground as he should of to make this play effective for Djokovic.

Sinner got out to a 5-1 lead off the back of an unreturned serve and more sideline breaking exploits (from the forehand and backhand wing), but also several net errors from Djokovic off his forehand and a volley. The Serb is still great, but he hasn’t been the “I’m Him” guy outside of the Olympics in 2024.

Second Set

While neither man created a break point in the opener, it didn’t take long for Sinner to generate two chances in the second set off the back of more sub-optimal volleying from Djokovic. At 30-40, Djokovic found the plus one forehand into the Sinner running forehand and the Italian absolutely minced it up the line for a winner (Cincy final, anyone?). This is becoming a trademark shot of Sinner’s.

Djokovic didn’t get all of this one, and you can see Sinner is able to actually move forward onto it with the last step. Does anyone hit the running forehand better these days?

Highlights wise there wasn’t a whole lot to add after this. Sinner continued to serve with impressive accuracy, and the plus-one dynamite on the next ball is a conundrum few have been able to match over the last year or so. This is a great second-serve into the body that jams Novak right up, and Sinner absolutely torches this. It’s not even that far from Djokovic.

In the fallout of this result the question is whether Djokovic can regain his level that can compete with Sinner and Alcaraz. Yes, he found it at the Olympics, but outside of that tournament — which was the main motivation for the Serb — the year has been below expectations, especially when you consider how strongly he finished 2023. Was fatigue a factor today? Maybe. He did have issues with the knee in the quarters and semis, and the movement looked off today, and overall I felt he was too passive and played a lot through the middle. His only path to victory over this version of Sinner is to constantly change direction and be the aggressor with placement. From Tennis TV commentary last year in Turin:

“Sinner just can’t get on balance during these points. There’s never been a player [Djokovic] better at changing direction off both forehand and backhand. Sinner is just constantly moving; he’s never set and able to get the big hit in.”

Sinner becomes the first player to win three Masters 1000 titles in a single season since Nadal’s 2018 campaign. The Italian is playing an incredibly complete brand of tennis — the serving, the movement, the sharp aggression — and it takes a hell of a performance to beat him. We’ll see how things shake out down the closing stretch of the season — as well as the highly lucrative Six-Kings Slam next week — but for now we sign off, again, with Forza.

1. Not that we have’t seen ultra-fast and aggressive matchups 20 years ago, with Federer and Agassi,