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World No. 1 Jannik Sinner will compete for a first-ever French Open title Sunday, after he defeated Novak Djokovic 6-4 7-5 7-6 (3) in the semifinals. But there’s way more to the exciting match than the straight-sets scoreline, as always. Ahead of Sinner’s final against Carlos Alcaraz, LWOT breaks down how he beat Djokovic and looks at what numbers helped the Italian win. Full data and statistics of the match are from the French Open’s website.

Sinner Predicts Novak’s Touch

Sinner had no problem facing Djokovic’s tricky drop shot. The Serb has regularly faked out opponents with his dropshot, but it seemed like he used it abruptly to shorten points. According to tournament data, Djokovic hit nine drop shots in the first set, missing three of them, and he wasn’t able to hit a winner on any of them. One of the drop shots hit in just the second game of the match landed closer to the middle of the court, and Sinner swatted it away for a backhand winner. Similarly, in the second set, the Serb missed three of the five drop shots he hit.

Djokovic’s drop shot improved in the third set, but he also attacked the net more. One of those points allowed the Serb to set up a break point down 1-2 in the third set — he hit a well-placed drop shot down the line, and closed the net with a volley winner. Djokovic hit nine volleys in the third set compared to six across both the first and second sets. Meanwhile, Sinner was only able to hit one passing shot winner in the entire match.

An Aggressive Djokovic and Sinner’s Fast Serves

Djokovic hit more winners than he usually does in a three-set match, firing 35 winners to 53 unforced errors in Friday’s semifinal. The Serb played aggressively to shorten the points, perhaps avoiding exhaustion should the match have gone into a fourth or fifth set. What stood out, either way, is that Sinner always won more points ending in four shots or less — the Italian notably won 55% of those rallies, but dominated the short points in the third set when Djokovic seemed to have his biggest footprint in the match.

Sinner also went for bigger first serves in the match. He averaged 121 mph off his first serve in the semifinal, an increase from his fourth-round and quarterfinal matches, but a bit lower than his highest average in the third round (124 mph). The Italian missed his first serve 49% of the time–arguably way too much in a semifinal–but he hit 10 aces and won nearly 80% of points when he landed his first serve.

His faster serves especially helped him fend off three set points in the third set. Two of his three set-point saves were because of serves clocking in at 126 mph (203 km/h) and 129 mph (207 km/h). Sinner also won 63% of his second serve points, a strong statistic against one of the best returners in the game.

It was also tough for Djokovic to break the World No. 1’s serve, but there was not much the Serb could do regardless. Of the five break points Sinner saved, four of them were either saved by big serves or forehand winners. More startling for Djokovic was that he didn’t even have a break-point opportunity until the tenth game of the second set. If Djokovic could even force a break point chance earlier in the match, he could have been able to pressure Sinner’s serve and mentality. Not many players perform better with momentum than Djokovic.

The Serve Plus One

Finally, Sinner executed the serve-plus-one strategies almost perfectly. Overall, Sinner’s deep serves allowed him to set up easy winners on the third shot. The Italian either won points by hitting winners away from Djokovic’s movement, or he hit cross-court to the open court as Djokovic helplessly chased down the Italian’s shot. According to French Open statistics, Sinner won 27 points in these three-shot exchanges, compared to just 13 from Djokovic. The Italian’s flat serve always pushed Djokovic back, and forced the Serb to hit weak returns that the World No. 1 could pounce off of.

There’s more to the data and patterns throughout Sinner’s entire French Open final run. However, the Italian’s final match against World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz might come down to mentality, grit, and fight in what is probably the most anticipated match of 2025 so far.