MELBOURNE — Long after midnight, long after logic said it should be over, Novak Djokovic was still standing, still swinging, still bending tennis history to his will.
Friday night at Rod Laver Arena turned into Saturday morning by the time Djokovic finally subdued Jannik Sinner in a five-set semifinal that felt less like a match and more like a referendum on time itself. The 38-year-old Serbian icon won 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in more than four hours, surviving a barrage of power, pressure and youth to move within one victory of Grand Slam title No. 25 — and an astonishing 11th Australian Open crown.
Call it one of the finest wins of Djokovic’s career. Call it stubborn brilliance. Call it Djokovic doing Djokovic things when the stakes are highest and the odds say he shouldn’t.
Sinner, the defending champion, threw everything at him. Djokovic absorbed it all. He fended off 16 of 18 break points, calmly erased deficits in multiple sets and found his best tennis when exhaustion should have taken over. The decisive break in the fifth came late, fittingly, after hours of attrition that tested legs, lungs and nerve.
This was not a flawless performance. It was something better — a master class in survival.
Yes, critics will point out Djokovic received walkovers earlier in the tournament. Yes, Father Time is no longer a distant concept hovering over his career. But none of that explains what happened under the lights Friday. Djokovic just went five sets with one of the most explosive players in the sport — and beat him — at an age when most players are doing commentary hits and pickleball cameos.
The Australian Open has long been Djokovic’s personal playground. He entered the night 10-0 in finals here, and now he’s back in one more, with history stacked neatly in front of him. One more win and the record books will need another rewrite. Twenty-five majors. Eleven in Melbourne. The GOAT debate, already leaning heavily his direction, may finally stop pretending it’s undecided.
What makes this run even more absurd is the context. The ATP Tour has tilted young for years, yet here stands Djokovic — older than most of the locker room’s coaches — still chasing more. Still aiming higher. Still unwilling to let the next generation usher him out politely.
Lightning McQueen got pushed out in the Hollywood films and shoved aside for the young guns.
Novak? He simply refuses to go away.
He was never supposed to be here. He was never supposed to chase Federer and Nadal, the golden hero’s of tennis.
Yet here he is, on the doorstep of even more history.
When it’s all said and done, the game of tennis will greatly miss Novak Djokovic. But for now, there may be one last trick up the Joker’s sleeve.
Sunday brings Carlos Alcaraz, another prodigy, another test, another chance to do the nearly impossible. If Djokovic somehow knocks off Sinner and Alcaraz back-to-back to win this title, it might be perfectly reasonable for him to grab a bottle of champagne, wave to Melbourne and walk straight into the sunset.
Whatever happens next, this semifinal already belongs in the Djokovic highlight reel for decades to come. At 38, with the clock ticking louder than ever, Novak Djokovic once again reminded the tennis world that the end of his story will come only when he decides it’s time.
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