Jannik Sinner beat Alexander Zverev in four sets to win the Wimbledon 2026 final, and the numbers from that match tell an interesting story about how far his game has come in just a few years. Even though Zverev hit more aces and landed more first serves, Sinner won the match because he did more with the points that followed, showing how much his overall game has grown.
On paper, Zverev looked like the man in control during the final. He hit 17 aces to Sinner’s 15, and he landed 80 per cent of his first serves compared to Sinner’s 66 per cent. Yet Sinner still won the match 6-7(7), 7-6(2), 6-3, 6-4, because he was simply sharper with the points that mattered.
Sinner won 80 per cent of the points on his own first serve, while Zverev managed only 71 per cent on his. On second serves, Sinner also came out ahead, winning 65 per cent of those points against Zverev’s 61 per cent. Along with this, Sinner also won more points while returning, picking up 43 return points compared to Zverev’s 34. In simple terms, whenever the match needed someone to step up and win a key point, Sinner had more ways to get the job done.
Just two years ago, this kind of serving performance from Sinner would have seemed hard to believe. At the 2025 US Open final against Carlos Alcaraz, his first serve landed just 48 per cent of the time, and he ended up losing that match. Just days later, leaked footage from his practice sessions showed him working hard on fixing that very sho t. Soon after, he won his next tournament.
The full rebuild of his serve actually goes back to 2022, when he was working with coach Riccardo Piatti. Back then, Sinner used a platform serve, with his feet planted wide and his racket arm coming from far behind his body. During this time, his first-serve percentage often stayed below 60. When Simone Vagnozzi took over from Piatti, fixing the serve became his top priority. At the 2022 Miami Open, former player Jim Courier asked Vagnozzi directly about his plan, and Vagnozzi explained that the serve had a hitch in it that needed to be smoothed out, along with moving the toss more in front so Sinner could be more aggressive.
By the middle of 2023, Vagnozzi and fellow coach Darren Cahill made a bigger change. They switched Sinner to a pinpoint stance, where his back foot moves up to meet his front foot at the point of contact. This style was based on John Isner, a very tall American player whose game is quite different from Sinner’s in every other way. At first, this change did not seem to make much sense. But over time, the results slowly built up, with small gains in 2023, bigger gains in 2024, and by 2026, his first-serve percentage rose above 65, with around 80 per cent of those points ending in his favor.
Former Italian Davis Cup player Paolo Bertolucci has also pointed out smaller changes that came later, such as moving the toss closer to his body and holding his right elbow further back while loading up for the shot. Together, these small fixes turned Sinner’s serve from a weak point that he had to protect into a strong weapon that now protects him during matches.
Even his rivals have noticed the change. After losing to Sinner in the Wimbledon semi-final, Novak Djokovic said that it has become almost impossible to attack Sinner’s first serve, adding that all a player can really do is try to read it, block it back, and hope to build a rally from there. Djokovic also said the serve has turned into an amazing weapon over the last two years, praising its variety, balance, and how well Sinner now uses his height while serving.
A Rare Piece Of Wimbledon History
Sinner’s serving numbers at this year’s Wimbledon place him in a very small group of players in the tournament’s history. He became the first Wimbledon champion since Roger Federer in 2003 to win the title without losing even a single service game across both the semi-final and the final. Across those two matches, he faced only two break points in total, one against Djokovic and one against Zverev, and he managed to save both of them.
Speaking after his win over Jan-Lennard Struff in the quarter-final, Sinner explained the change in simple words. He said that he and his team changed the motion, the toss, and the timing of his serve, along with many other small things, adding that the goal was never about chasing more speed but instead learning to play the right serve at the right moment.
A Tough Moment In The Final
Sinner’s calm approach was tested in a big way during the final. Two hours and forty-two minutes into the match, with the score locked at 3-3 in the third set, Zverev finally earned his first break point of the entire match, after both players had held serve 31 times in a row before that point. However, Zverev never got the chance to use it. While chasing down a drop shot from Sinner, he slipped and hyperextended the same knee he had injured two years earlier, with Sinner even helping him back up on his feet.
Play carried on after the fall, but Zverev’s movement was clearly affected. He later admitted that he struggled to push off properly on his serve, which caused his serve speed to drop, and said the fall clearly hurt his game in the third set. Two games later, while serving with a weakened push-off, he was broken for the first time in the entire match, and Sinner went on to serve out that set.
In the fourth set, Sinner created three break points during one long, tense seventh game, at one point even diving to the ground to keep a rally going, before finally converting the third break point as Zverev’s game fell apart under the pressure. In total, Sinner faced just one break point across the entire final, and he saved it.
Jannik Sinner’s Career Stats And Grand Slam Titles
Sinner’s rise over the past few years has turned him into one of the most complete players in men’s tennis. Below is a simple table showing his major Grand Slam results and titles won so far in his career.
Along with these Grand Slam trophies, Sinner has also built up a strong overall title count on the ATP Tour. He completed the career Golden Masters in 2026 by winning the first five Masters 1000 events of the year, at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, Madrid, and Rome, a feat only a small number of players have ever managed. Here is a look at his wider trophy collection across different levels of the tour.
Sinner’s overall Grand Slam win-loss record across the four majors also shows just how consistent he has become on every surface. He holds a record of 22-4 at the Australian Open, 22-6 at Roland Garros, 20-4 at Wimbledon, and 23-6 at the US Open. The only Grand Slam still missing from his collection is the French Open, where he reached the final in 2025 but lost a close five-set match to Carlos Alcaraz.usatoday+1
A Career Still Being Built
Sinner’s journey shows how small, patient changes to a single shot can completely change the shape of a career. What started as a weak serve with a visible hitch in 2022 has now turned into one of the most difficult shots to attack on the entire tour, and it played a direct role in helping him lift the Wimbledon trophy once again in 2026.
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