2026 Wimbledon Men's Finals Writeup 🐢

Men’s Singles :

Sinner vs Zverev :

It’s time for the finals of Wimbledon. The margins are thin and the two players remaining are ready to put on a very high level show. Stats and expectations are good, but what really makes these players click? The good folks at Wimbledon believe a behind the scenes look at the pros can really be valuable, so as usual I’ve been granted permission to spend some time with both athletes in their natural environment. Here are their stories :

8:00 AM. Zverev’s hotel room. Zverev sits thoughtfully, drawing pictures of himself. He sits with a mirror in front of him to remember what he looks like. He then eats a chip. “I only eat the chips that are shaped like Zverev,” he explains. I nod. “To keep my Zverev levels high” he adds. I nod again. “I am Zverev” he explains. I nod again. “I even stay in a room that is shaped like Zverev” he adds, gesturing wildly. I nod, but look around the room, which appears to be rectangular. “Zverev can be any shape”, he offers. I nod, a bit less enthusiastically. “I am Zverev” he adds again. “Didn’t you just say that?” I ask. “You’re welcome” he replies, throws me a wink, and brushes some of his chip crumbs towards me. I begin to gather my things to leave. “Reporters have poor stamina,” he confides in his mirror self. It is time for the Wimbledon finals.

9:00 AM. I arrive at Sinner’s room. I go to knock on the door but it is quickly pulled open, and Sinner grabs my hand before it makes contact. “Shhh,” he gestures. I look around the room, and I can quickly see why. One, there appear to be over 200 baby bunnies in the room, and they are all sleeping, and wearing small t shirts with carrots on them. Two, Simone Vagnozzi is sleeping in one of the non-bunny beds, and it appears Sinner has filled his hand with shaving cream. I look, and sure enough Jannik is holding a feather in his hand. He heads over to Vagnozzi, and begins tickling his nose. After a few moments, Vagnozzi moves, and without opening his eyes, says “not today, Jannik.” Sinner looks crestfallen, but offers me to have a seat. I take the seat, and sit immediately on a whoopee cushion. Sinner begins giggling quietly. The bunnies do not awaken from the noise. They are used to it.

“Do you have a moment to talk about tennis?” I ask Sinner. He nods, and whispers “let me just use the restroom first”. He walks to the restroom but crashed into the seemingly open door and is thrown back; he falls to the floor and begins laughing. It appears someone has placed clear plastic wrap over the door opening. “You can’t prank yourself, Jannik,” says Vagnozzi, still not opening his eyes. “No! You can’t prank YOURSELF!” says Jannik, and fist pumps to no one in particular. He then begins gathering up his tennis gear. “Where are you going, Jannik?” asks Vagnozzi. “Idk, maybe I go win Wimbledon” says Sinner. “The match is not til tomorrow, Jannik”, insists his coach, but it is too late. Sinner gathers several of his favorite baby bunnies into their carrying case and heads out. Just then I notice Jannik did not finish his breakfast and go to eat some of his fruit, but as I bite I discover it is all plastic. Hysterical laughing erupts from outside the door. “Jannik is always one step ahead!” he whispers, and bounds off down the hallway. It is my most successful interview ever.

Now that we have a good insight into the mindset of these two players, I will provide a brief analysis of their games. This can be brief because it is going to be a match with very thin margins. Jannik Sinner has basically become Zverev’s worst matchup on tour. Sinner has only dropped one set to him in their last 8 matches, and he won that match in Vienna. Zverev tends to play better in Austria/Germany because of the hometown comfort so that almost is a half outlier. It also is an indoor event where Zverev’s serve gets a boost. So starting off, we have a big issue. Zverev has not been able to get much done against Sinner. Let’s dig into the why, because I think this match will be slightly different than almost every previous meeting.

Zverev’s big problems on tour for a long time were a passive shot selection, double faults, and a deep court position. The passive shot selection is an issue because Sinner doesn’t really miss unless you infuse great pace on the ball or really stretch him wide. Zverev being a wall is great and keeps him from losing to lower tier players (even if he takes the long road), but against Sinner he can’t really score. Traditionally, Zverev’s forehand in particular lacked depth, which left him on the defensive end quite often. At this event, Zverev has left this issue behind. He has been hyper-aggressive on his backhand, often landing it with great depth, and his forehand has been struck as well as it ever has in his career this week. He started ironing out this wing at times this season, hit it well at RG, and this week he’s been absolutely ripping it. Zverev against Fery was clinical, and every setup he had was dealt with aggressively and efficiently.

The double fault issues have been leaving for a while, but this week is the best that I’ve seen his serve look since last year’s Australian Open. It’s been unplayable for most of his opponents, and his first serve has been above 70% the last few rounds. This # can always go up, but it’s the minimum he needs to apply pressure to Jannik, who is the best returner on tour at this point. The last issue for Zverev is the one that’s still the most present, and it’s his tendency to drift behind the baseline. With his power and big swings he does feel a little more comfortable from there, but Sinner has the ability to create short angles better than anyone on tour, and his balanced shotmaking on his backhand mean that sometimes Zverev can wind up getting forced into making difficult passes when he shouldn’t really be stuck in that situation.

Sinner has played better each round, and Djokovic was his best performance. He was extremely focused on hitting the ball to the open court whenever he got into a rally, and he never really eased off with the pace. He knew he could win in two ways via shotmaking or by eventually wearing down Novak, and it really was a professional performance from him. The level Djokovic brought early on was good enough to beat anyone else in the tournament besides Sinner and possibly Zverev, and it would also have snagged Sinner with the level he played in the first week. For Sinner to turn in a great performance right before the finals is a great sign, because Zverev actually looks like he’s becoming the player he was supposed to. Zverev’s first big moment on tour was a battle against Nadal where he muffed a match point volley that was extremely makable. The shot wasn’t really the point, although there was some foreshadowing there for his future execution. The point was that Zverev had a huge serve, and went for constant winners in the rally. He hit lasers off both wings and with decent consistency. This would then disappear for many years, to the extent that many fans of tennis thought that he might never get there. His talent and his physical work have dragged him forward for quite some time, and at this point he actually is playing tennis near the top level of the current tour.

So who wins? Well, I still think Sinner does, but I expect the margins to actually be ultra thin. I don’t think more than a few games will decide the match in the end, and I’m expecting overtime sets to be the norm. Sinner is the best returner on tour, but Zverev is the best server right now. Zverev playing aggressive and maintaining a consistent level also means he has one of the few combinations that can actually score on Jannik. Djokovic’s spot-serving was great against Jannik, but it doesn’t have the high bounce trajectory that Zverev’s delivery does (because Zverbb is about 5 inches taller). I’m hesitant to go so far as saying Zverev can win and that’s for a few reasons. One, even though Fritz was injured, he still managed to get into some of Zverev’s service games and apply a bit of pressure. Lehecka nabbed a set, and Fery broke him in the first set. Zverev has established a new level, but I don’t fully buy into that until that level is marched out against the top opposition on tour. The second reason is the h2h. Zverev is very clearly playing at a new level, but there are things Sinner does that have scored on Zverev in the past, and if you’re beating the best servers consistently you likely have a good read on where they’re going. Sinner can trade from the baseline here in neutral rallies, and he does have more variety in his game. I don’t expect to see many dropshots or lobs, but I think Sinner is the more Fed/Nadal-esque player who has drilled front-court exchanges often enough to have the right shot.

Sinner has some small edges here and he’s a tremendous server also, but again this is going to require him to be very clutch. A few unlucky bounces on the highly chewed up baseline can change a set, and tiebreakers are something that Zverev plays very well. This is basically the best finals we could ask for, and I think we will get rewarded. Sinner in 4. It’s a copout to say “I could see it going 5”, but I have to admit I am curious how much Zverev’s new level elevates his chances against Sinner. This is also likely his toughest test of the fortnight so Sinner will have to bring at a minimum the level he did against Djokovic.