Jannik Sinner joined an elusive list of players after beating Novak Djokovic during the Australian Open semi-finals on Friday.
Sinner is now among one of the three players to beat Djokovic at a Grand Slam, Davis Cup and ATP Finals. The other two on the list are tennis greats Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Djokovic's bid for a record 25th Grand Slam singles title was ended by a 6-1 6-2 6-7(6) 6-3 loss against Sinner.
The Serbian was looking to bag the record for most Grand Slam singles titles outright after sharing it with Australian Margaret Court since winning his 24th major at the U.S. Open last September.
Fourth seed Sinner, who beat Djokovic twice in three matches at the end of last season, took advantage of 36-year-old opponent's shaky serve and error-prone backhand to convincingly win the opening two sets.
Sinner was in control of the third set as well but Djokovic raised his game to stay firm until the tiebreak. However, the Italian fluffed a match point, while also losing the set, to give his opponent a lifeline.
According to Opta, Sinner has become the first Italian male player since the ATP Rankings were published in 1973 to defeat the world number one in a Grand Slam Men’s Singles event (they were 0-23 prior to this match).
At 22 years and 163 days, Sinner is also the youngest men’s singles finalist at the Australian Open since Djokovic in 2008.
Sinner is the first Italian player in tennis history to reach the singles final at the Australian Open.
Sinner domination can be judged from the fact that this was this first completed match at a Grand Slam in Djokovic's career where he did not forge a single break point chance (0 in 19 receiving games).
Sinner will face either third seed Daniil Medvedev or sixth seed Alexander Zverev in Sunday´s title match.