MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Italian Jannik Sinner is now a back-to-back Wimbledon champion. He defeated Germany's Alexander Zverev in four sets on Sunday. The women's final on Saturday featured two Czech players. Linda Noskova took home the title. Scooby Axson was covering Wimbledon for USA Today Sports, where he's also an enterprise reporter, and he's with us now. Good morning.
SCOOBY AXSON: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Sinner lost the first set but went on to win. Was it a tough match for him?
AXSON: Yeah, in the sense that when you look back at what he did in the French Open, he was expected to win, and then he flamed out in the second round because of the heat. In London this week, everybody talked about the heat. So when he lost the first set, everybody was like, oh, here we go again. But he battled back and just blitzed him in the final two sets to win back-to-back titles.
MARTIN: So you just mentioned he didn't make it very far in the French Open, which surprised a lot of people. How important was this win at Wimbledon for him?
AXSON: Back-to-back champions, which has happened a handful of times - and also, you have to keep in mind that his biggest competitor, Carlos Alcaraz, has been out most of the year with a wrist injury. So he's expected to win these tournaments pretty easily. But, you know, again, tennis is a finicky sport, and anybody can beat anybody at any time. So for him to come back and win Wimbledon is impressive.
MARTIN: Let me go back to Novak Djokovic.
AXSON: Yes.
MARTIN: He has 24 Grand Slam titles - the record. But he hasn't had any in a few years, and he lost to Sinner in the semifinal. Do people think Djokovic has another Grand Slam in him?
AXSON: He does. This is what he does. He basically skips the pretournament tournaments, the majors, and then shows up at, like, the French and Wimbledon and makes the semifinals at age 39. It's absurd...
(LAUGHTER)
AXSON: ...What he's doing. It - I mean, it's absolutely impressive.
MARTIN: So don't count him out.
AXSON: Yeah. Don't.
MARTIN: Yeah.
AXSON: Absolutely don't count him out.
MARTIN: Let's talk about the women. This was the first time Linda Noskova made it to the Grand Slam final. How did the match play out?
AXSON: Well, she squandered, in the second set, five championship points. So when you do something like that, and then it goes to a third set, you can either break down or, you know, just come back. And she came back with a vengeance. The thing about these Czech women players is they're coming on strong, and the American women, you know, need to look out. There are nine American women in the top 50 of the rankings.
MARTIN: Wow.
AXSON: There are eight Czechia women in the top 50. Now, this is a country of about 10 million people. So just imagine that the state of North Carolina had eight women in the top 50, and the rest of United States had nine.
MARTIN: Wow.
AXSON: That's how impressive this is.
MARTIN: Wow. OK. So before we let you go - about 40 seconds here - as we look ahead to the U.S. Open, what should we be watching for?
AXSON: I will favor Jannik Sinner, and then I'm looking for Sabalenka to come back. She hasn't won a major this year. She's the defending champion here in New York. So I look for those two to come through the tournament.
MARTIN: All right. That's Scooby Axson. He covers tennis for USA Today. Scooby, thank you.
AXSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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