Jannik Sinner kept his Wimbledon title defense moving with a straight-sets win over Jan-Lennard Struff, but the bigger story is what comes next. The top-ranked Italian will face Novak Djokovic in Friday’s semifinals after both men survived very different quarterfinal tests.
Sinner beat Struff 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-3 to reach his third Wimbledon semifinal. He also extended a remarkable run at the All England Club, where he has now won 10 straight-sets matches in 12 outings over the past two years.
Sinner finds a way through a tricky test
Struff made the match uncomfortable at times, and Sinner admitted it in his on-court interview with www.espn.com. “First of all a very, very tough player to play against,” Sinner said. “He deserves everything he has done and achieved in his career. Great person off the court.”
Sinner added that Struff started better and that he had to settle in mentally before the match turned in his favor. He also saved a set point in the second set, then tightened up in the tiebreak and became more comfortable in the third.
| Match Detail | Jannik Sinner | Jan-Lennard Struff |
|---|---|---|
| Result | Won 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-3 | Lost in straight sets |
| Aces | 16 | Not stated |
| Unforced Errors | 26 | Not stated |
| Wimbledon Wins | 25 | Not stated |
The win also pushed Sinner to 25 career victories at Wimbledon. That made him the sixth man to reach that mark in his first six appearances at the tournament, joining Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, Rafael Nadal, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.
A hot day, a strong serve, and a bigger semifinal challenge
The conditions were warm, with the early afternoon temperature at 84 degrees Fahrenheit and expected to rise to 88 F. Sinner used an ice towel around his neck on changeovers, a small reminder of how physical the match was.
He also finished with 16 aces, lifting his tournament total to 97. That is already his highest ace count in a single major, a useful detail for a player who said he felt much better physically after working through issues that followed his French Open exit.
Sinner was knocked out in the second round at Roland Garros amid a heat wave in Paris, and he said the team had spent time trying to understand what went wrong there. “We worked a lot, especially after Paris, trying to understand what went wrong there,” he said. “It was a huge test today. I felt really comfortable on the physical side today so a big step forward.”
Djokovic reached the last four in far more dramatic fashion, beating Felix Auger-Aliassime 7-6 (10), 3-6, 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4) in a match that lasted more than five hours. The result set up the third Wimbledon semifinal meeting between Sinner and Djokovic in the past four years.
The rivalry has already swung both ways at the All England Club. Sinner beat Djokovic in 2025 en route to the title and lost to him in 2023, and he remains one of the few players with a winning record against the seven-time Wimbledon champion.
Among players who have faced Djokovic at least five times, only Andy Roddick and Sinner own winning records against him, according to ESPN Research. That adds another layer to a semifinal that already carries the feel of a defining test for Sinner’s title defense.