Saturday September 11th 2021
Victory over Zverev
Djokovic struggles close to the history book
Novak Djokovic is about to write tennis history. The top favorite defeated Alexander Zverev in a grueling battle in the semifinals of the US Open. Now the Serbs could achieve great things.
Olympic tennis champion Alexander Zverev was eliminated from the US Open after a big fight in the semifinals against top favorite Novak Djokovic. Six weeks after his success in Tokyo, the 24-year-old from Hamburg lost to the ten-year-old Serb on Friday evening (local time) in New York 6: 4, 2: 6, 4: 6, 6: 4, 2: 6.
Djokovic will now face the Russian Daniil Medvedev in the final on Sunday (10 p.m. CEST), who had prevailed 6: 4, 7: 5, 6: 2 against the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime. Djokovic still has the chance to become the first man in 52 years to win the Grand Slam from all four major tournaments in one calendar year. Rod Laver was last successful in 1969.
“There is only one game left. All in. All in. Let’s do it,” said Djokovic in his interview on the pitch. “I’ll put my heart and body in there. I’ll treat the next game like it is the last game of my career.”
In contrast to the semi-final win at the Olympic Games, when Zverev lost the first set 1: 6 to Djokovic, he was fully there from the first rally at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Both dominated their service game before Zverev had the chance to break for the first time with the score of 3: 3 after a back and forth cheered by the audience for the first time – and she missed. But he struck at the next opportunity, got the break to 5: 4 and shortly afterwards with the third set ball the first round.
For Djokovic it was the fourth set loss at the beginning of a game in a row. The media and fans wanted to see a piece of history and thus a victory for Djokovic on the way to the Grand Slam – but the Zverev class was recognized and applauded. The great Rod Laver in a white shirt watched from the stands how an annoying double error by Zverev gave his opponent the first break in the second set and a 2-0 lead, which Djokovic quickly expanded to 3-0. “Tennis is a sport in which self-confidence is a key factor”, Zverev had said when entering the court in the Billie Jean King facility – his shrank a little in the course of the second set, which he finally had to surrender 2: 6.
Zverev’s frustration in the meantime first became apparent when he couldn’t use a 30: 0 to start the third set for a quick break and angrily swung his racket through. When the score was 2: 2, he had two breakballs at 40:15 and had to surrender the point anyway. His three victories over Djokovic – at the Olympics, the ATP finals and in the final of the Masters in Rome – Zverev had all won over two sets. In a major over three sets of wins, Djokovic, who was ten years older, was still ahead, most recently at the Australian Open in the quarter-finals. Zverev had also won the first set there.
At the beginning of the duel, Djokovic had already spent around four and a half hours more time on the pitch than Zverev in the course of the tournament, but there was no sign of fatigue in the 20-time major winner. After a good two hours of play, he lost a mammoth rally when Zverev defended the second set ball after 53 strokes – but Djokovic used the third after 16 strokes to lead the set 2-1.
Also in the fourth set, in which something in the eye initially hindered him, Zverev continued to play great tennis and missed a breakball – but this time he still got the point to 2: 1 in the second attempt and then roared loudly with a clenched fist. When he managed to equalize the set with 6: 4 and forced the decisive fifth set, the fans in Flushing Meadows stood up again and cheered the German – as well as the level of the two professionals.
The early break against himself to 0: 2 and the following point to 0: 3 immediately put Zverev under enormous pressure. A failed ball gave him the second break against himself in the last set and in the meantime a 0: 5 deficit, from which he could not recover despite his own break and some cosmetic results. Ultimately, Zverev lost the game after 3:33 hours.
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