The only way to explain this wild Australian Open match is that everything after the second set was different to before. The sun set over Rod Laver Arena, Jannik Sinner went off for a bathroom break, and when he returned he was another player. Suddenly he was lithe and alive, a 6ft 3in spider scuttling up to the net to administer deadly, delicate drop shots. On the other side Stefanos Tsitsipas’s shoulders slumped, the legs grew heavy, and his once-pristine hair flopped over an increasingly furrowed brow.
Tsitsipas had won the first two sets with a clinical touch worthy of the No 3 seed. He had already beaten his 21-year-old opponent in four matches of their five, including a quarter-final in Melbourne last year which was done and dusted in three quick sets, and here was another destined for the win column. But then the momentum swung, the many Greek fans grew anxious, and so did Tsitsipas. Sinner dominated the third set, eked out the fourth, and forced a fifth.
