The Wimbledon men’s final is set for Sunday, July 12, on Centre Court and we’ll see the two best players on tour right now: World no 1 Jannik Sinner against the no 2 seed Alexander Zverev.
Both men impressed and won their semifinals in straight sets on Friday. Sinner defeated seven-time champion Novak Djokovic 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, while Zverev ended the “Ferytale” run of British wild card Arthur Fery 7-6(0), 6-2, 6-4. This final will be their 15th career meeting and second Grand Slam final – Sinner won the first, in straight sets at the 2025 Australian Open.
How they got here
Sinner’s fortnight hasn’t been completely spotless but good enough – he needed five sets to escape Miomir Kecmanovic in round one, his first grass-court match of the season after skipping the usual warm-up events. Since then it’s been one-way traffic: straight-set wins over Nuno Borges, Jenson Brooksby, Shintaro Mochizuki and Jan-Lennard Struff, followed by the demolition of Djokovic. There he dropped just four points on serve in the opening set and won 88% of his first-serve points. Djokovic, for his part, called it “a good old blowout” and admitted Sinner was a level or more better than he was in their Australian Open meeting six months ago.
Zverev’s route has had more resistance but he also faced better players. He needed four sets to get past Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round, then blew past Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 in the quarters. Against Fery he dropped the first-set tiebreak to love before pulling away, hitting 44 winners with 72% first serves in. It’s Zverev’s first Wimbledon final and comes exactly a month after his maiden Grand Slam title at Roland Garros.
The head-to-head
Sinner leads their overall series 10-4, and has won the last six meetings in a row without dropping a set. Zverev hasn’t beaten Sinner since US Open 2023, across hard, clay and indoor hard courts.
This is actually their first meeting on grass, which is an interesting factor.
Predictions for Sinner vs Zverev
As mentioned above, Sinner has a big edge in their recent H2H, but Zverev is clearly playing the best tennis of his life right now and he will like his chances better this time. His confidence is higher and he looks more relaxed in the big moments.
Looking at the odds, the world no 1 once again enters as big favorite at odds 1.20 (1/5 or -500) which is expected, but I think the German can at least make a fight out of this.
For Zverev, he has to keep serving at the high level we’ve seen often during this week and he should force 1 or 2 tiebreaks.
In the end I think Sinner will defend his title though, as he’s overall a better player in most areas, not at least the return game. The weather will be fairly hot but not humid and of course with shorter points on grass, he should be fine physically.
