Jannik Sinner shakes off “little ups and downs” to oust Matteo Berrettini in second round

“There were some little ups and downs,” Jannik Sinner said after his 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 2-6, 7-6 (4) second-round win over Matteo Berrettini at Wimbledon on Wednesday. “Which is normal for five sets.”

There may be a lesson in these words from the world No. 1. Hiccups, lulls, mental vacations, moments when your guard slips: Those are all to be expected, even when you’re playing well, in a tennis match. What isn’t to be expected is perfection.

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This second-round encounter—between two Italians, two friends, the current No. 1 and the 2021 Wimbledon finalist—was the highest-profile matchup of the first two rounds. And if it never quite caught fire, it wasn’t a disappointment, either. The first two sets weren’t as close as the tiebreaker scores would indicate, but Berrettini did make it more of a match than it appeared he would after 90 minutes. By the end of the fourth set, Sinner appeared to be on the brink of losing control of the proceedings. Then, as he has done consistently for the last eight months, he calmly regrouped and reasserted himself.

There were two deciding factors: The excellence of Sinner’s return of serve when he needed it, and the shakiness of Berrettini’s ground strokes when he needed them.

Sinner only broke serve twice, compared to four times for Berrettini, but his return made the difference in the first-set tiebreaker. Three times Berrettini fired a first serve upwards of 125 m.p.h., three times Sinner returned it deep—and three times he won the point. The last one gave him the set.

As for Berrettini’s groundstrokes, he made 48 errors on the night, compared to 25 for Sinner. More crucially, late in the fourth set, when he looked like he was ready to level the match, and the crowd was urging him to do it, his forehand and backhand both broke down.

Up 1-0 in the tiebreaker, Berrettini lost a long rally when he sailed a backhand long. At 2-3, he went down a mini-break when he sent a seemingly easy, open-court forehand wide. At 4-3, Sinner pounded his serve into Berrettini’s backhand and drew an error. The match was over a minute later.

“In the three tiebreakers, I got a little lucky, but I’ll take it,” said Sinner, who surely didn’t want to rub his older friend’s face in the defeat.

There was one other moment that showed why Sinner won this match, and why he’s at the top of the sport right now.

Serving at 5-5 in the fourth set, 15-15, Sinner moved in for a forehand that he would normally make with ease, only to overhit it wide. The score was 15-30, Berrettini was fired up and two points from breaking, and the crowd, which wanted a fifth set, was behind him. Two points later, at 30-30, Sinner had another forehand from the same part of the court as the one he had missed. This time, he didn’t miss. Instead of rushing and flirting with the sideline, he coolly lifted it well over the net and directed it into the open court for a safe winner.

Sinner made one error, but he didn’t make two. And for the second straight match, he lost one set, but he didn’t lose three.

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