For the second day in a row, there was a big sensation in the men’s singles at the last Grand Slam tournament of the season. The day before, the winner of the last two Cascos, the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, completed his performance at the US Open 2024, and last night Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic withdrew from the fight. The 37-year-old veteran of the men’s circuit lost to the Australian Alexei Popyrin, who was in excellent form, in a four-set match: 4:6, 4:6, 6:2, 4:6.
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This defeat was Novak’s earliest in New York in 18 years. This year marked the Serb’s 18th appearance in the main draw of the US Open. And he had only lost in the third round twice, in 2005 and 2006, at the start of his outstanding career. Since then, Novak, who has won four US Opens (2011, 2015, 2018, 2023), has always reached at least the fourth round in New York, but today he stopped in the third.
To be fair, there is one more exception to the above statistics. In 2017, Novak did not come to New York at all. The Serbian athlete ended that season early at the end of July due to an injury sustained at Wimbledon. In the quarter-finals of the English Slam, Novak seriously injured his elbow and was forced to go on vacation. To date, this was the last tennis season in which Djokovic failed to win a single Slam. And now, seven years later, Novak will again end the year without adding to his collection of majors won.
Novak Djokovic
Photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images
Djokovic’s defeat to Popyrin also means that a great series has ended today. The Big Three of men’s tennis (Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer) have won at least one Slam every season since 2003. After 21 years, this series has come to an end.
“I came here without feeling physically and psychologically fresh. But since it is the US Open, I tried to play. I didn’t have any physical problems, I just ran out of energy. This was evident in the way I played from the beginning. I was not myself from the first match.
But life goes on. Considering how I felt and played from the beginning of the tournament, the third round can be considered a success. It was probably one of the worst matches of my career. I have never served so badly. And on such a fast surface, with no serve, no easy points, with a very low percentage of success on the first ball, with a huge number of doubles, it is impossible to win,” Djokovic explained his failure.
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Following the results of the US Open, Djokovic, who was unable to defend his title from last year, will fall to at least fourth place in the world rankings, and under certain circumstances he can fall even further. As for the selection for the final tournament of the year, the Serbian is currently only seventh in the race to reach Turin.
After the end of the American Slam, Djokovic could be out of the eight, which would jeopardize his performance in Italy. Curiously, the last time Novak did not appear in the final was precisely in 2017, as I mentioned above.
Novak Djokovic
Photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images
But all of the above is unlikely to make the Serbian tennis player himself very sad. This may sound strange, but there is a feeling that Novak himself was mentally well prepared for failure at the US Open. His main goal for 2024 was to have a successful performance at the Paris Olympics. For the Olympic gold this season, he risked everything and was able to win it.
After a memorable victory over Alcaraz, the 37-year-old Serbian left tennis life for a whole month. He did not play a single Masters and cut short his training process, enjoying the most anticipated victory of his career. He had every right to do so. And now he hardly regrets anything.
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But for other tennis players, the consecutive defeats of Alcaraz and Djokovic open a promising path to the Slam. And here we immediately remember two Russian tennis players. First of all, in Djokovic’s quarterfinals is the sixth seed Andrey Rublev, who has already reached the fourth round, where he will play the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. If he had reached the quarterfinals, Rublev could have played Djokovic there, but now the draw is open and Andrei has never before in his life reached at least the semifinals of a Slam. Not to mention more.
Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev
Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
On the other half of the field, 2021 US Open champion Daniil Medvedev continues his run in New York. In recent times, since that same triumph five years ago, the Russian has repeatedly come close to a second title in the “Helmets”, but he was unable to take the penultimate or even the final step. After the departures of Alcaraz and Djokovic, that chance seems to be the highest possible. Yes, in the quarter-finals he should face top seed Jannik Sinner, but the Italian’s mental preparation after the well-known events raises questions. And the last meeting between the Russian and the Italian at the majors ended in Daniil’s favour.
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Olympic winner Djokovic gave his competitors a gift by withdrawing from the US Open. Now the question is who will make the best use of the opportunity that presents itself. Incidentally, Medvedev, 28, is now the last player in the group to have previously won the US Open.
