Novak Djokovic Beats Alexander Zverev to Play at US Grand Slam


Twenty-seven down, one left.

Defeating German Alexander Zverev with a five-set win on Friday night, Novak Djokovic achieved a one-game victory with the most sacred achievement in tennis.

After winning the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon this year and knocking out his first opponent at the US Open, Djokovic just has to beat Russian Daniil Medvedev in Sunday’s final to become the first man on a calendar to win a Grand Slam. Since Rod Laver did it in 1969.

And he got there in style, coming from behind early, then dodge for a while from an opponent who thought he might have Djokovic’s trick. Zverev came close and forced Djokovic to go the distance with a tough 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win, but the razor-thin margin barely made Djokovic’s number in the 2021 Grand Slam . looks even more mysterious.

Friday night’s win set the stage for one of the most remarkable weekends in tennis. On Saturday, Britain’s Emma Raducanu and Canada’s Leylah Fernandez, who wowed their countries and audiences at the US Open, will compete for the women’s title in the most unexpected final.

The 18-year-old and 150th-ranked Raducanu was almost unknown two weeks ago and is now the first player to reach a Grand Slam final after the main draw in the qualifying tournament. Fernandez, who turned 19 this week and finished in 73rd place, was known until a few days ago as little more than a grumpy, scrawny fighter whose future no one could predict.

On Sunday, Djokovic will face Medvedev and play for history. He drew 20 against his biggest rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, in the race for the most Grand Slam titles in his career, a competition that Djokovic is determined to win so he can cement his legacy as the greatest player of all time. However, it may take a few more years for this race to reach its conclusion. At this point, however, struggling with age and injury, it’s almost impossible to believe that Federer and Nadal could win a calendar year Grand Slam. This is what will make Djokovic the greatest of the Big Three forever.

Djokovic battled fourth-seeded Zverev after playing three of the tournament’s best sets in the quarterfinal defeat of Matteo Berrettini on Friday night: a four-set, trailing win against a younger, older and younger player. stronger competitor.

Djokovic, 34, would need a repeat performance against the so-called next-gen star Zverev, who had figured out how to keep his cool in the biggest moments last year. Inside US Open final Last year, Zverev took the lead by two sets and even served the title, but to lose to Dominic Thiem in a tiebreak at the end of the fifth set, it turned into a parade of slices, mistakes and double faults.

This version of Zverev has disappeared in recent months, especially against Djokovic. At the Tokyo Olympics, Zverev roared off the set and the service was broken beating Djokovic in the semi-finals.

When the US Open was drawn two weeks ago, a rematch with Zverev in the semifinal round emerged as one of the biggest potential obstacles to Djokovic’s search for the holy grail of his sport. Zverev, 24, stands 1.80m tall, glides around the tennis court with the grace of an NBA shooting guard, and can unleash 130mph serves and scrimmage hits at will when he plays well.

For the first time since the tournament started, the crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium was in Djokovic’s corner. He’s long been respected far more than loved, but an ex-girlfriend accused Zverev of harassing him multiple times in 2019. No charges were filed and Zverev denied the allegations, but the out-of-court situation disqualified him from being recognized as Zverev. a cute underdog.

Hymns to “Nole”, Djokovic’s favorite nickname, began early in the night and encouraged him as he made his final comeback.

The match started for Djokovic as many do – with an early hiccup, he would have had to climb the mountain much steeper.

This slippage occurred when Djokovic served with a tied score in each of four games, a moment fraught with danger against someone who serves as strong as Zverev’s.

Zverev played the most aggressive game of the young night, hitting forehands that forced Djokovic to stretch his backhand. Zverev took the lead, and then Djokovic made a double mistake, giving the great German a chance to serve the set. He didn’t waste it. Zverev won the opening set, as Djokovic’s three previous opponents had done.

But Djokovic is as good at translating the script as anyone who’s ever held a racket.

Berrettini said that instead of demoralizing Djokovic, he somehow gained energy from losing a set. Just like in his last three games, Djokovic leveled up his game and moved up to the second set lead as Zverev started sending untimely second serves into the net and participating in the long rally types that Djokovic had power over. An hour and a half after their start, Djokovic and Zverev were back where they started, all hooked up.

The turning point of the match came about an hour later. While Zverev remained on the set, Djokovic displayed tennis prowess and played what may be the only game historians have marked as the moment when the finish line of the Grand Slam finally appeared.

No one at Arthur Ashe Stadium knew better than Zverev that reuniting with Djokovic would result in a slow and painful death. Yet somehow, Djokovic managed to play a kind of tennis Tai chi and continued rallies of 18, 32 and 12 shots to reach the triple set point. Zverev survived 21 shots and a ridiculous 53 rally to save the first two.

Then, on the 15th shot of the sixth issue of the game, he couldn’t do better than throw a desperate lob to Djokovic, who had been waiting in the net all night to take the lead for the first time.

Still, Zverev was not going to go quietly. Djokovic took a page out of the playbook and somehow seemed to draw energy from being behind. With Djokovic serving 1-1, Zverev struggled to turn game three into a mini-marathon, digging and clinching with a slick forehand pass that Djokovic couldn’t come close to touching. With Zverev’s serve going beyond the 130 mph mark, Djokovic was unable to find the clearance to take revenge. Djokovic’s luck in history was reduced to one set.

Djokovic’s run into the abyss of the Grand Slam has had its fair share of five-set escapes. It was an early round escape when he beat a torn abs and American Taylor Fritz in Australia in February. In Paris, he came back in two sets against Lorenzo Musetti in the middle of the tournament and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.

Now another chance has come and he wasted no time jumping on it. Djokovic, who was leading 1-0 – and probably everyone else in the stadium – could feel Zverev shaking. A double mistake gave Djokovic a timeout at 15-30. The backhand error gave Djokovic a breaking point. Then another rally went the wrong way for Zverev and the set became a seemingly inevitable string of Zverev misses, with someone bouncing wildly out of bounds.

One final backhand error and 3 hours 35 minutes later for a final serve break, Zverev was finally done and the Grand Slam math was very, very simple: The only number that mattered was this – 27 games behind, one left.



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