Sublime Sinner serves up a sustained, ferocious spectacle

Jannik Sinner is as supple as a whip and owns a lash of a serve. First game of the Wimbledon final. 15-30. No problem. Ace. He’s a halo-wearing, Grand Slam title-winning miser who gives rivals nothing. In his first five matches, he offers up 20 break point chances across 17 sets, but then out comes his spanner and he tightens his game. Exceptional players are fastidious mechanics.

In the semis and final, a total of 366 minutes, he offers Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev just a single peek each at a break point. What a tease. In the latter occasion, he saves the break point with a drop shot which leaves Zverev on the ground, holding his knee in agony. Sinner walks over to help him up, a portrait in polite mercilessness.

The grass has known meaner servers, for its blades have been singed and scorched by a choreographed violence unleashed on its manicured turf. Sinner serves 128 aces at this Wimbledon, which sounds modest when you consider that John Isner produced 113 in his single marathon encounter with Nicolas Mahut. The American’s feats are listed on the ATP Tour and in Janes Weapons under Air-Launched armaments.

Boris Becker went “Boom Boom” and the earth shook. Pat Rafter played Goran Ivanisevic in the 2001 final and said of facing the Croat in the ad court: “Where do I stand? What do I do? Where is he going? I hope he serves a fault.” Richard Krajicek had the audacity to out-ace Pete Sampras 28-8 in their 1996 quarter-final, and this year lounged in the Royal Box in celebration of the 30th anniversary of his title.

Maybe he was watching a clip of Roger Federer on the practice courts in 2026, his strokes still coated in the same varnish as ancient violins. The Swiss did a few serves, resembling a ballet dancer warming up by throwing up his arms, and who can forget it?

Not because he could hit a tin can on the other side of the court while blindfolded, but because of the quality of the next shot which followed it. And this is where Sinner is a wonderful villain. If you get his serve back, his forehand will murder you, or his backhand, or a drop shot. He’s a punitive package deal.

Rafael Nadal amended his serve, Djokovic refined his. Great players are never finished products, but always have a little scaffolding attached as they build their games. Sinner has advanced his stroke and it received the ultimate endorsement this summer from a man who knows more about returns than a librarian. “You cannot attack his first serve,” said Djokovic. “You can try to read it, block it, chip it, get it back and play... and he backs it up with first aggressive shots.”

In 100m sprint finals, in a wonderful illusion, it often looked as if Usain Bolt was accelerating at the end. In truth, he was just decelerating the least. In tennis, sometimes it seems a player is rising and yet it’s merely that the other player is dipping. Sinner’s percentage of first-serve points won across four sets was 73, 86, 81, 84; Zverev’s, whose serve travels at a more vicious kmh, was 81, 66, 70, 74. Greatness is an act of sustaining.

Zverev, who brings to mind Roman columns, is a fascinating study. At 29, for too long a study in overcaution, he has understood winning is to let go, to walk high wires, to roll dices. It’s a pleasure to watch his unshackling and yet even as Zverev strafes and shells Sinner all evening, especially with a mortar of a forehand, the Italian is a fort that won’t fall.

On television commentary is Andre Agassi who knows about irresistible objects. In the 1999 final, the Sidewinder-armed Sampras was 0-40 on serve midway through the first set when he just eased away, winning 21 of 24 points. “He walked on water,” said Agassi then and on this day Sinner is not as dominant and yet he is equally scary. Even when he falls he is the better player.

In the third set, at 3-2, Sinner slips, his hand touching the earth, and then he’s up, running and retrieving. At 4-3, he falls again, this time body on the ground, and again he rises and scuttles across the baseline like a grass spider. Both times Zverev hits long and the second time he hurls his racket and everyone understands. It’s the two hour, 54-minute mark and Sinner is still asking relentless questions: How long can you go Sasha? How many more shots have you got? No one point wins a championship match but the accumulated brutal interrogations of a single evening.

Up in the stands, Dustin Hoffman, star of the thriller Marathon Man, knows the spirit which underlies exceptional craft. He sees Sinner’s spirit and miles away in Spain a young man will have heard it. As he repairs his injured wrist, Carlos Alcaraz knows the sound of the pure, polished violence which awaits his return.