Djokovic and Jannik Sinner push Australian Open semi into a fifth set

Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner turned Friday’s night session into another Melbourne marathon, dragging their Australian Open semifinal into a deciding set with a place in Sunday’s men’s final on the line. The winner will face Carlos Alcaraz, who earlier survived Alexander Zverev in a five-hour-plus epic that has already reframed the physical demands of the last weekend.

As of 9:17 a.m. ET on Jan. 30, 2026, the match is level at two sets all, with Sinner leading 2–1 in the fifth set on the live scoreboard.

Djokovic vs Sinner: where it stands right now

The unfolding story of djokovic vs sinner has been its rhythm: Sinner’s pace and depth in the odd-numbered sets, Djokovic’s resets and return pressure in the even-numbered ones. The sequence—6-3 Sinner, 6-3 Djokovic, 6-4 Sinner, 6-4 Djokovic—has kept the crowd and both benches in a constant state of recalibration.

For fans searching “sinner vs djokovic,” “sinner djokovic,” or “djokovic sinner,” the essential detail is that neither player has found sustained separation. Service games have been contested, momentum has flipped quickly, and the fifth set is now a race to hold nerve and legs after more than three-and-a-half hours of high-intensity baseline exchanges.

Australian Open 2026 schedule: what’s left this weekend

The australian open 2026 schedule is down to the championship matches. Melbourne’s evening starts land in the very early morning in the U.S., which is why “australian open live” searches spike overnight.

Key remaining start times in ET (approximate, based on standard twilight sessions in Melbourne):

• Women’s final: Saturday, Jan. 31 — about 3:30 a.m. ET

• Men’s final: Sunday, Feb. 1 — about 3:30 a.m. ET

Order of play can still shift slightly with ceremony timing, warmups, and weather, but those windows are the anchors for the final weekend of AO tennis.

Australian Open results: how Sinner got here

Before this semifinal, Sinner arrived with the cleanest quarterfinal path of the contenders, dismissing Ben Shelton in straight sets: 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. The match reinforced a familiar matchup dynamic—Shelton’s lefty serve creating short bursts of danger, Sinner absorbing pace and redirecting to take time away.

Shelton’s run mattered, though, because he reached that quarter by beating Casper Ruud in four sets (3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4), a result that reshaped the bottom half and added a new American storyline to the australian open tennis bracket. If you’re tracking “sinner shelton,” it’s the quarterfinal scoreline that frames how authoritative Sinner looked heading into this night.

Alcaraz is waiting after a record semi

While the second semifinal is still live, the opponent is already set: Alcaraz is into the championship match after outlasting Zverev 7-5 in the fifth, having led by two sets and then fighting through cramps and two tiebreak losses. The 5:27 duration also sharpened the endurance theme hanging over the tournament’s last two days.

That matters for whoever emerges from zverev vs alcaraz’s aftermath and the current battle: recovery time is short, and Sunday’s final will reward whoever can restore explosiveness quickest—especially on return games and in extended rallies.

Longest tennis match, longest Australian Open match: where this fits

Friday’s pair of men’s semifinals has revived record talk across tennis scores feeds.

• The longest tennis match on record remains John Isner vs Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010 (11 hours, 5 minutes, across three days).

• The longest Australian Open match remains the 2012 men’s final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal (5 hours, 53 minutes).

This Djokovic–Sinner semifinal is not yet in that territory, but the fact it has reached a fifth set—after another men’s semifinal ran beyond five hours—underscores how the late rounds at australia open 2026 have become an attrition test as much as a shot-making contest.

Sources consulted: ESPN; Australian Open (Tennis Australia); ATP Tour; Reuters; Olympics.com