Tennis at the US Open: Djokovic out, Zverev through – Sport

It was a wild Friday evening at the US Open in New York. First, the thrilling duel between the two Americans Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton in Arthur Ashe Stadium dragged on, with Tiafoe winning in five sets to great acclaim. Then the Norwegian Casper Ruud, the 2022 finalist, seemed to lose to the Chinese Juncheng Chang, but still managed to turn a 0-2 set deficit. Then the Italian Lorenzo Musetti, bronze medalist at the Olympics in Paris, was eliminated by the American Brandon Nakashima. Then the American Madison Keys and the Belgian Elise Mertens needed almost three hours before Mertens celebrated – and only then, it was almost 11 p.m., was Alexander Zverev allowed to take to the court in the Louis Armstrong Stadium for his third-round match.

Zverev finally converted his match point at 2:35 a.m. on Saturday morning. After a tough fight, he won 5:7, 7:5, 6:1, 6:3 against Tomás Martín Etcheverry, 25, from La Plata, number 33 in the world rankings, and has thus reached the round of 16 at the US Open for the sixth time. It was the second latest match to end in tournament history; only the 2022 quarterfinals between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner ended later (2:50 a.m.). However, the match lasted longer than the legendary Swedish duel between Mats Wilander and Mikael Pernfors, which only ended at 2:26 a.m. in 1993.

Parallel to Zverev’s match, another match was coming to an end. Novak Djokovic suffered a surprise 4:6, 4:6, 6:2, 4:6 defeat at Arthur Ashe Stadium to Australian Alexei Popyrin, 25, ranked 28th in the world. The last time Djokovic was knocked out so early in the second round of a Grand Slam was in 2017, at the Australian Open against Uzbek Denis Istomin. After Carlos Alcaraz (silver winner in Paris) was eliminated against outsider Botic van de Zandschulp from the Netherlands, and now Djokovic’s failure, the field of favorites is thinning out. That is of course good for Zverev. In the semifinals, 24-time Grand Slam winner Djokovic could have been his opponent. Zverev’s path to the final is now very doable. He will first face Nakashima on Sunday.

These facts are also noteworthy: For the first time since 2017, Djokovic has not won a Grand Slam title in a season. The last person to defend his US Open title remains Roger Federer (2008). In addition, for the first time since 2002, there has been no Grand Slam winner in a season named Djokovic, Federer or Rafael Nadal. And what else happened on this crazy night: The last match in Arthur Ashe Stadium between Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (who won in three sets) and Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova began at 12:08 a.m. – no match in New York had started that late. The tournament wanted to better protect the players after debates last year.

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Zverev’s party started bizarrely. Right from the first rally, Zverev used video evidence, believing that his ball had not bounced twice before his backhand, as the referee had decided. He was wrong. Zverev did not like the match and lost his service game. He seemed impatient and hectic. It took him a while to stabilize his game. Re-break to 4:4, it remained close, Etcheverry played clay court tennis on hard court. Djokovic’s out was shown on the video wall, and Zverev noticed it. He promptly lost the set, 5:7, and in the second set the Argentinian was the more active player too, breaking to make it 3:2, Zverev equalized to 4:4 and countered by winning the set, 7:5.

Meanwhile, Djokovic was sitting in the press conference and admitted: “My game is falling apart. I didn’t feel fresh from the start.” And he noted: “It was a terrible match from me. I played some of my worst tennis ever, served worse than ever.” (14 double faults gave him the right.) He said: “I felt like an amateur, but that’s part of the sport. The Olympics had a big influence and I was wondering whether I should come or not. I came because it’s a Slam. It ended badly, it’s moving on.” In Paris he had won gold, his last major title missing.

Djokovic out? “That’s a big name, right?” says Zverev

Zverev and Etcheverry continued to hit the balls back and forth like ball machines, but Zverev dominated the match a little more. But the Argentinian stuck to him like an annoying piece of chewing gum, and was hard to shake off. At 3:2 in the fourth set, the underdog had three break balls, but he didn’t use any of them, so Zverev’s slightly more aggressive game prevailed. “I was on the ropes at the beginning,” he admitted in the on-court interview and praised Etcheverry for his strong resistance. Zverev was even in the mood to make jokes, thanking the remaining few thousand spectators and saying it was great that they were there – he might not have stayed in the stands so long and would probably have been in New York on a free Friday doing something else.

Zverev also achieved a special record with his victory: he is the first professional born in 1990 or later to win 100 matches (100:34). Immediately after the match, Zverev got on his bike to loosen up, and with his upper body bare, he gave a few answers to a small group of reporters. The tournament was not to blame for the late start, he said, “it was bad luck today that the matches before went on for so long.” And that Djokovic lost and can no longer cross his path? He now knows that the 37-year-old Serb is no longer in his half. “That’s a big name, isn’t it?” said Zverev, “but at the end of the day I have to concentrate on myself.” Especially if he has to keep working night shifts like on Friday.