“A good step forward” – Sinner grows into Wimbledon under the heat and eases past Struff into the last four
Jannik Sinner (No 1) is into a second straight Wimbledon semifinal, and the answers keep coming for the defending champion. The Italian grew into his quarterfinal to see off Jan-Lennard Struff 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-3, reaching his 10th Grand Slam semifinal at just 24.
Jannik Sinner, Wimbledon 2026 | © Ch. Caillaud / PsNewz
The further Wimbledon goes, the more confident Jannik Sinner looks. The defending champion and top seed, whose opening matches at these Championships were exercises in survival, produced his most complete display yet to beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-3 on Tuesday and reach the semifinals for a second year running.
The Italian’s run into the last four carried him into rare company. At 24, Sinner has reached his 10th Grand Slam semifinal, becoming one of only five players since 2000 to make 10 men’s singles semifinals at the majors before turning 25 – after Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. Victory extended his winning streak at Wimbledon to 12 matches, dating back to last year’s title run, and took him to 42 wins in 2026, 35 of them from his last 36.
For long stretches there was little to separate the two men on serve, a classic grass-court exchange in which Sinner went unreturned on 43 percent of his deliveries and Struff on 42. The difference lay in the margins. Struff, at 36 the oldest man in the Open Era to reach a first Grand Slam quarterfinal and ranked outside the top 70, had knocked out eighth seed Daniil Medvedev on his way to the last eight, but against the world No. 1 he was forced to gamble to stay in the rallies and won only 49 percent of the points behind his own first serve – too slender a return to hold Sinner off.
“I started the match very well”, Struff told the reporters. “I had some chances, got his service games to deuce two, three times. But he served pretty well and played great tennis in these situations. I got one break, lost the first set straight after. At the end it’s 0-3 sets, but I think I played a good match, he was just some points better today. I had two, three games where it was Love-30 in the third. I didn’t serve well, my percentage was pretty low – I think 30-something in the last set. I need a good serve against him, otherwise he’s too consistent, too good from the baseline.”
“It was tough to maintain the focus because he’s performing that regularly, match by match”, Struff added. “I had the feeling if I missed one or two balls, he’s straight there. That’s what makes him so good.”
Sinner “felt comfortable” under the heat
For all the records piling up around him, the thing that pleased Sinner most on Tuesday had little to do with the scoreboard – it was how his body responded under 32 degrees. The world No. 1 called his physical condition “a good step forward” and said he “felt comfortable,” and it was not hard to see where his mind had drifted. Barely a month ago in Paris, he had walked off a Grand Slam court on the wrong end of one of the season’s strangest results.
At Roland Garros, Sinner led Juan Manuel Cerundolo by two sets to love in the second round and somehow lost in five – his earliest exit at a major since 2023. That afternoon clearly still shapes how he measures himself. “If it would happen again like in Paris, I hope not,” he said, “but if it happens again, we need to change things again.”
Sinner will next face the winner of the quarterfinal between Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 3 seed, and seven-time champion Novak Djokovic, the No. 7 seed.
