After his win, Sinner was asked about similarities with his playing style and Novak Djokovic’s, revealing the 24-time Grand Slam champion is the “main person I look up to”.
“Like today he was serving incredibly well. I watched the match. The way he moves, I feel like he is still much more confident than I am on grass, how he moves. But this is also the experience he has more than I have. He mixes up the game a little bit more. I am maybe a little bit the faster hitter. But in the other way, I’m also quite consistent, like he is.
“There are some similarities. But yeah, I believe that he gave me a lot of information that I can make my game similar to his, but in my style.
“I always try to see from certain players what I can take and trying to see if it works well. He is definitely the main person I look up to, trying to do couple of things like him.”
A bright start from Vukic saw him force the first break-point opportunity of the match, but Sinner fended it off, and never looked back. The Italian went on to claim consecutive breaks in the opening set and closed it out in resounding fashion, inside 28 minutes.
It was a tale of similar brilliance from the 23-year-old as he raced to a two-set lead, seizing upon the relatively tame serve of his Australian counterpart to move within a set of victory inside an hour.
The longer the match went on, the more adept Vukic seemed at handling Sinner’s deep, fizzing forehands into the corners. But too much of the second-round clash had passed him by, and Sinner’s momentum was impossible to halt on Centre Court.
Vukic threatened to take a lead in the third set and potentially turn the tide – forcing two break points for a potential 3-2 lead. However, the top seed dispatched a trademark backhand down the line to save his first, and ambushed a loose Vukic strike to ensure the brief scare did not stain his perfect serving record.
If a Sinner victory was not already a foregone conclusion, that may well have seen all hope of an unlikely Vukic surge eviscerate.
The three-time Grand Slam champion pelted his opponent’s backhand to gain an advantage in search of a match-clinching break, and secured the advantage.
With Sinner serving for the match, the pair played out some great entertainment to close out the evening clash.
After saving two match points to force deuce, Sinner and Vukic traded blows in a mammoth 15-point game before the Italian sealed victory on his sixth attempt – setting up a third-round encounter with Pedro Martinez.
