Novak Djokovic to Play Alexander Zverev in US Open Semi-Finals


“Good fight.” “A war.”

It’s always Novak Djokovic, late in the evening, usually long past midnight, when another day of work is finally over, when the arena is empty and he’s sitting in front of a microphone, his piercing eyes glazed over and a strange combination. like steel and trying to put into words what he just endured.

For many tennis players, games exist as a form of art. The world’s third-ranked player, Stefanos Tsitsipas from Greece, talks about tennis as a form of self-expression.

According to Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is number 2 in the world, tennis is a chess match that requires the ability to think a few shots ahead, to control the center of the court as if it were the center of a chessboard. Make the quick moves needed to move from defense to attack at once.

Then there’s player Djokovic, who is two games away from achieving the holiest feat in the game and won four Grand Slams in the same calendar year. For Djokovic, tennis is not art or ballet, and certainly not a game. It’s a fight, a street fight where only one survives.

“A war.”

“Good fight.”

After a 3 hour 27 minute duel with Italy’s Matteo Berrettini in the quarterfinals, he said “I can walk away” as he approached 1:30 on Thursday. “Actually, I like to go far.”

Djokovic, 34, of Serbia, has been facing younger opponents for nearly two weeks, some of them more than a decade. Many of them are bigger than him and apparently much more powerful. “I don’t want to wrestle with him,” Djokovic joked after defeating his 25-year-old rival, Berrettini, who was 2 meters tall and weighed more than 200 kilograms.

Still, Djokovic not only defeated them all, he also left them defeated.

The smug 18-year-old from Denmark, Holger Rune, who pulled a set in the first-round match, was barely able to walk in the middle of the third set, injured 90 minutes later after chasing Djokovic’s blistering forehands and cramping. every corner of the court.

In the fourth round, 20-year-old American Jenson Brooksby gave Djokovic everything he could for a set and a half. But in a few more games, a medical instructor hovered in his chair and treated a hip injury that had aggravated during the unique physical test of playing Djokovic.

The key moments that night came as he followed Djokovic’s passes as he ran, staring at his 6-foot foe.

He said he wanted Brooksby to “feel” his presence on the pitch, to understand that he was dealing with someone who had no intention of showing mercy, no matter how clumsy.

“I wanted to wear it down and it worked,” he said of Brooksby.

Battlefields are familiar territory for the wolves-loving Djokovic, a product of a war-ridden region as a child. One of his trainers, Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, said that the Balkans are raising people desperate to prove their abilities to a world that, in his own words, expects nothing from you.

For Djokovic, this US Open has become in many ways a microcosm of a career marked not only by on-court battles with opponents, but also by career-long struggles with many other forces in the game: battles against history, taking the lead in most of the Grand Slam championships and never before. what the player did not do; Against a tennis ball that loves the duel between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and prefers that Djokovic not spoil the Rafa-Roger love festival. And there’s a never-ending battle against the tens of thousands of tennis fans who come to his games and roar for him to lose, who don’t really care who his opponent is. (If Novak loses, and Roger and Rafa win, their logic is broken.)

Crowd “ROOOOOON!” he roared, teasing Djokovic on his first night here. They showed little appreciation for the start of Djokovic’s quest to achieve something considered very difficult in this age, with the three greatest players of all time competing at the same time. He was succinct in his interview on the field after Rune was done. She gave up on her signature move of pushing her heart into the crowd. He was outspoken at the post-match press conference.

“Of course you always want the crowd behind you, but that’s not always possible,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”

Two games later, as Kei Nishikori’s taunts trying to stay alive reach full throttle, Djokovic fired a series of impossible shots in the key moment of the third set. After the first two he put his finger to his ear and demanded the noise that finally rose behind him. After the third, he squinted at the crowd as he lurched towards his chair for the pass and sent a very clear message – I will beat him and beat you.

Still, the real battle is always on the field, and it’s a battle he starts with an upper hand, because the players who’ve taken his blows have convinced themselves that nothing less than the best game of their lives won’t be enough.

“You have to be perfect,” said semi-final rival Alexander Zverev, who beat him at the Olympic Games in Tokyo six weeks ago. “You can’t be perfect most of the time. That’s why most of the time people lose to it. You have to win the match yourself. You should be dominating the points.”

Berrettini looked like he had a chance in the quarterfinals on Wednesday night.

Everything about Berrettini is big – his shoulders, chest, the way he follows the court and unleashes his fast serve and massive forward, plus a Usain Bolt-like stride that sends him from baseline to the net in seemingly three quick strides. For 80 minutes, he took and returned every blow Djokovic tried to land, beating the first set 7-5, driving the stadium overflowing with 23,000 fans crazy.

But Djokovic was just getting started, leveling up to win the next three games and making sure Berrettini knew how much more he had to put in to win.

In 40 minutes everything was equal. Just before the three-hour mark, a few minutes past midnight, Djokovic was making his way to the finish. Berrettini was still hitting 130 miles per hour, but Djokovic was somehow throwing them back to his feet and onto the line. The big Italian dropped his shoulders and shook his head as his forehand tore through a diagonal court where Berrettini could only watch his buzz.

Berrettini once again said that Djokovic made him sweat in a way that other players never did, that he took his early shot from his mouth when he lost the first set as he should have done to Berrettini in the Wimbledon final and somehow came back. stronger to court.

“He draws energy from that set he lost,” Berredtini said.

Berrettini had many friends in defeat. By midnight, perhaps half the crowd had gone home when Djokovic made it clear that his night would end just like the others. Only those who added Djokovic’s nickname to the hymn Ole by saying “Nole, Nole, Nole, Nole…” remained.

Once again he fought them all and won.

“Five sets, five hours, whatever it takes,” he said in the bowels of the stadium just before leaving. “That’s why I’m here.”



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