Djokovic, Novak

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      Medvedev Has a Two-Set Lead Over Djokovic

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      Daniil Medvedev has tightened his grip on this U.S. Open men’s final, leading Novak Djokovic 6-4, 6-4, and putting himself one set from winning his first major title.Medvedev converted on his third set point opportunity with a strangely pushed drop shot that caught Djokovic off-guard, leaving him stretching for a backhand that went well wide of the court.The pro-Djokovic contingent inside Ashe has grown more vocally desperate as their player falters in his bid for the Grand Slam, cheering Medvedev’s missed first serves and double faults.Djokovic is by no means out of this match, of course. He came back from two sets down twice before during this Grand Slam bid, both times at the French Open. In the fourth round of that tournament he came back to beat Lorenzo Musetti, and in the final he came back to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas. More

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      Medvedev Takes the First Set, 6-4 in the Men's Singles Final

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      Novak Djokovic finds himself in familiar territory 36 minutes into the final: down a set at the U.S. Open.Medvedev took the first set, 6-4, without facing a break point, holding onto a break he earned in the opening game of the match.Djokovic has plenty of room to come back in the best-of-five format, and he’s done it many times here: he has lost the first set in his last five matches in this tournament. Each of the previous four times, he came back to win the second set and the match.Medvedev has only lost one set at the Open this year, in the quarterfinals against qualifier Botic Van de Zandschulp.Medvedev was able to play the first set on his terms, hitting more winners (13 to 10) and fewer unforced errors (7 to 10) than Djokovic. But Djokovic at least seems in command of his own after two shaky opening games, and there has been very little separating the two for the past 30 minutes. More

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      Novak Djokovic Tries to End 52-Year Grand Slam Drought at U.S. Open

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      To capture the first Grand Slam in men’s tennis in 52 years, Djokovic must beat Daniil Medvedev in the U.S. Open final. “Mentally, he’s the best player to ever play the game,” Djokovic’s semifinal opponent said.Novak Djokovic might disagree, but after a 52-year vigil in the men’s game, you want the Grand Slam to be worthy of the wait.You want it to be not just inspiring but devilishly difficult, with opponents throwing heart, soul and full-cut forehands into stopping the quest.You want, in essence, matches like Djokovic’s Friday night semifinal at the U.S. Open against Alexander Zverev. Five sets of thorny questions answered and of break points saved in which, as so often in the moments that matter most, Djokovic found a way to impose his game and will.“He plays the best tennis when he needs to, which a lot of players don’t,” Zverev said.Djokovic was calm, unusually calm, as he again worked it all out, sifting through risk-reward ratios, making tactical shifts and, above all, refusing to miss on the biggest points. Full focus was required because the danger of his Grand Slam running onto the rocks was real, just as it will be on Sunday when he faces Daniil Medvedev, another taller and much younger opponent, in the final.Djokovic, a man who likes to chew on the grass after winning Wimbledon, is close enough to taste his 21st career Grand Slam singles title, which would break his tie with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer for the men’s record. But the shiniest prize at this stage is the Grand Slam: winning all four major singles titles in the same season.Nadal and Federer, for all their gifts and enduring excellence, have never come close. Djokovic is one match away, which is no surprise to Open officials, who long ago recruited Rod Laver to come to New York to award the trophy on Sunday.Laver, an Australian lefthander nicknamed Rocket, completed the Grand Slam in 1962 as an amateur and in 1969 as a professional. No man has done it since. His red hair has long since gone gray. He is 83 and still passionate about the game, and he was front and center in the president’s box on Friday, just as he will be on Sunday.“I’m going to treat the next match like it’s the last match of my career,” Djokovic told the ESPN analyst Patrick McEnroe in his on-court interview Friday.It would have been more symbolic if Nadal or Federer was the one trying to keep Djokovic from clearing the final hurdle. But a champion can play only the opposition he is dealt, and if Nadal and Federer have both been sidelined at this advanced stage with injuries, that only underscores Djokovic’s resilience and longevity.Staying healthy enough to keep winning is part of the greatness equation, part of the challenge, and it has been left to Djokovic, still No. 1, to hold off the next generation in New York.So far, so great against the best talent available: the Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini in the quarterfinals and the 2021 Olympic gold medalist Zverev in the semifinals.“Look, there is a reason why he’s won 20 Grand Slams, and there’s a reason why he’s spent the most weeks at world No. 1,” Zverev said. “I think mentally he’s the best player to ever play the game. Mentally in the most important moments. I would rather play against anybody else but him.”Should Djokovic win the U.S. Open on Sunday, he will stand alone among the men with 21 career Grand Slam titles.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesDjokovic, who knows Zverev well because both are based in Monte Carlo, can sense the trepidation in the opposition and take strength from it.“Probably all these big matches that I won, big titles over the years, have kind of built that kind of aura around me that players know there’s a never-die spirit with me, especially when I play Grand Slams,” he said. “They know that until the last shot, things can turn around, which was the case in several occasions throughout my career. So I’m glad that my opponents think of me that way. I want them to feel that they are under extreme pressure when I’m facing them on a big stage in Grand Slams.”Djokovic was not always a rock. Early in his career, he had a reputation for taking frequent injury timeouts and retiring from matches. In 2008 at the U.S. Open, the American star Andy Roddick mocked Djokovic at a news conference by reciting a mostly fictional laundry list of his ailments, including both ankles, “a back and a hip, cramp, bird flu, anthrax, SARS, common cough and cold.”Was Djokovic bluffing during matches?Roddick demurred. “If it’s there, it’s there,” he said. “There’s just a lot. He’s either quick to call a trainer, or he’s the most courageous guy of all time. I think it’s up for you guys to decide.”That exchange seems like ancient history. Djokovic addressed his endurance issues and breathing difficulties with two surgeries for a deviated septum and a shift in 2010 to a gluten-free, largely plant-based diet.He became an ironman, and more than a decade later, the younger set still cannot keep up. After he defeated Zverev, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, Djokovic’s record in five-set matches was a phenomenal 36-10.The last man who can stop the Grand Slam is Medvedev, 25, a lean and trilingual Russian who is ranked No. 2 and is at his best on hardcourts.He lost the 2019 U.S. Open final in five sets to Nadal, and Medvedev’s sparkling form at the start of this season had many expecting another classic match when he faced Djokovic in the Australian Open final.Instead, Djokovic won, 7-5, 6-2, 6-2, breaking Medvedev’s game and spirit after a close first set. But Medvedev, who has won 14 of his last 15 matches, has had a more restful journey to the final in New York than Djokovic, dropping just one set to Djokovic’s six.“I’m going to give all I have left on Sunday, and I have a lot left,” Medvedev said after defeating Felix Auger-Aliassime in straight sets.Djokovic beat Medvedev at the Australian Open this year.Paul Crock/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMedvedev has beaten Djokovic three times in best-of-three-set matches but never in the best-of-five format. Opinions are divided on what approach he should take. McEnroe, a former U.S. Davis Cup captain who was courtside for ESPN on Friday, believes Medvedev needs to “out-patience” Djokovic.“It looked to me like Medvedev came out in Australia and thought, ‘I will outhit this guy,’ but he doesn’t hit big enough to outhit him,” McEnroe said. “He has to outmaneuver him, which I think he can do. I think he has the shot tolerance. The question is, does he have the guts? You’ve got to be willing to go to the wall in every way, shape and form and not only play your best strategic match but physically be ready to suffer like you have never suffered before.”What is clear is that Medvedev, in his third major final, no longer is content with making a deep run. He wants his first Grand Slam title much more than he cares about preventing Djokovic’s Grand Slam.“It’s true there is a lot of stake for him, and though that could put a lot of pressure on him, knowing him, the pressure will make him stronger,” Medvedev said. “I’m just going to give all I have, and I’m surely not going to think in the middle of the match if I’m winning that ‘OK, I’m ruining the record he’s trying to beat.’ It’s only the match that counts for me.”Djokovic also will try to focus on the match and only the match while recognizing that this means ignoring the elephant in the stadium.“I know we want to talk about history; I know it’s on the line,” he said late on Friday night. “Of course, I’m aware of it, but I’m just trying to lock into what I know works for me. I have my routines. I have my people. I isolate myself. I gather all the necessary energy for the next battle, only the next match.”It is hard to bet against him at this stage. After he has reeled in the greats, Federer and Nadal. After he has stared down so much pressure. After he has added dimensions to his game, like the drop shots that were often so effective against Zverev on Friday.But the Grand Slam has long been tennis’s steepest hill to climb, and it will be difficult to block it out with Laver front and center and Djokovic so close to something so rare.But then shouldn’t a Grand Slam be hard, very hard, after a 52-year wait? More

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      How to Watch the U.S. Open Men's Final in the U.S. and Canada

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      Novak Djokovic will battle Daniil Medvedev for the U.S. Open men’s singles title, and a chance to capture the first men’s Grand Slam in 52 years.How to watch: Sunday, Sept. 12 at 4 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app in the United States. In Canada, on TSN and streaming on the TSN app.Novak Djokovic is one match away from completing the Grand Slam in men’s singles for the first time since 1969, when Rod Laver did it in the first full year that major tournaments were open to professionals.Few have come anywhere near that achievement in the decades since: When he won Wimbledon in July, Djokovic already became the first man since Laver to have won the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon in the same year. After winning his U.S. Open semifinal on Friday, Djokovic cited an interview where Kobe Bryant said he wasn’t happy about having taken a 3-1 lead in the N.B.A. Finals to explain his mind-set.“That’s kind of an attitude I have; job is not done,” Djokovic said. “Excitement is there. Motivation is there, without a doubt, probably more than ever. But I have one more to go.”By reaching the final, Djokovic has made it one step closer than Serena Williams’s Grand Slam bid came in 2015, when she lost in the semifinals to Roberta Vinci. Djokovic, who has recently followed Williams’s lead in declining to answer questions about the goal that he is pursuing, said he could relate to what she was going through.“I was talking to Serena; she was very emotional about everything that was going on,” Djokovic said of Williams in 2015. “I can relate to what she’s been going through right now, I understand it now. Obviously, once you’re in that situation, you can really comprehend what a player goes through.“I understand why she wanted to avoid all the questions about it because in the end of the day, you have to go out on the court and deliver,” he added. “You’re expected to always win. For a great legend that she is, she always has that expectations from everyone, including herself. It’s no different with me.” More

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      History on the Line at the U.S. Open Finals 🎾

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      History on the Line at the U.S. Open Finals ��David WaldsteinReporting from Flushing MeadowsBen Solomon for The New York TimesDaniil Medvedev, the second seed, was once the bad boy of the U.S. Open. Then fans realized he is just a passionate, interesting guy. The 25-year-old Russian is into his third final, but he’s yet to win one. Tough task now. More

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      Novak Djokovic Reaches U.S. Open Final, One Victory From a Grand Slam

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      Djokovic beat Alexander Zverev, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, and has a chance to become the first man since 1969 to win a calendar-year Grand Slam. He will play Daniil Medvedev in the final on Sunday.Twenty-seven down, one to go.With a five-set win over Alexander Zverev of Germany on Friday night, Novak Djokovic moved to within a single match victory of pulling off the most hallowed achievement in tennis.After winning the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon this year and knocking out his first challengers at the U.S. Open, Djokovic now has to defeat only Daniil Medvedev of Russia in Sunday’s final to become the first man to win the Grand Slam in a calendar year in 52 years.And he got there in style, coming from behind early on, then surviving an onslaught from an opponent who seemed for a time that he might just have Djokovic’s number. Zverev came close, forcing Djokovic to go the distance in a grueling 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win, but the razor-thin margin only made Djokovic’s number at the Grand Slams in 2021 seem more mysterious.Djokovic needed 3 hours and 35 minutes to defeat Zverev.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThe win on Friday night set the stage for one of the most remarkable weekends in tennis. On Saturday, the teenage sensations Emma Raducanu of Britain and Leylah Fernandez of Canada, who have captivated their countries and the crowds at the U.S. Open, will compete for the women’s title in the unlikeliest of finals.Raducanu, 18 and ranked 150th in the world, was barely known two weeks ago and now is the first player to reach a Grand Slam final after making it into the main draw through the qualifying tournament. Fernandez, who turned 19 this week and is ranked 73rd, was until a few days ago known as little more than a scrappy, undersized battler whose future was anyone’s guess.On Sunday, Djokovic will take on Medvedev and play for history. He is tied with his biggest rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, in the race for the most career Grand Slam titles with 20, a competition that Djokovic is determined to win so he can cement his legacy as the greatest player ever. But that race may take a few more years to reach its conclusion. At this point, though, it is nearly impossible to believe that Federer and Nadal, who are battling age and injury, can win a calendar-year Grand Slam. It is the thing that would make Djokovic the biggest of the Big Three forever.“The job is not done,” Djokovic said just past midnight Saturday morning. “The excitement is there. The motivation is there, without a doubt. Probably more than ever. But I have one more to go.”Djokovic went into Friday night’s battle with the fourth-seeded Zverev after playing what he said were the three best sets of the tournament in a quarterfinal defeat of Matteo Berrettini: a four-set, come-from-behind win over a younger, bigger and more powerful opponent.Alexander Zverev won the first and fourth sets.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesDjokovic, 34, was going to need a repeat performance against Zverev, a so-called next generation star who has figured out in the last year how to keep his cool in the biggest moments. In the U.S. Open final last year, Zverev blew a two-set lead, and even served for the championship, only to lose to Dominic Thiem in a tiebreaker at the end of a fifth set that descended into a parade of slices, errors and double faults.That version of Zverev has disappeared in recent months, especially against Djokovic. At the Tokyo Olympics, Zverev roared back from a set and a service break down to overwhelm Djokovic in a semifinal.When the draw for the U.S. Open came out two weeks ago, a rematch with Zverev in the semifinal round loomed as one of the biggest potential obstacles for Djokovic in his hunt for his sport’s holy grail. Zverev, 24, stands 6 feet 6 inches tall, floats around the tennis court with the grace of an N.B.A. shooting guard, and can unleash 130 m.p.h serves and rocketing forehands at will when he is playing well.For the first time since the tournament began, though, the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium was firmly in Djokovic’s corner. He has long been far more respected than loved, but a former girlfriend has accused Zverev of abusing her repeatedly in 2019. No charges have been filed and Zverev has denied the allegations, but the off-the-court situation disqualified him from being embraced as an endearing underdog.Chants of “Nole” — Djokovic’s favored nickname — began early in the night and spurred him as he mounted his latest comeback.Fans reacting during the third set.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThe match started as so many others have for Djokovic — with an early hiccup that made the mountain he would have to climb that much steeper.This slip occurred as Djokovic served with the score tied at four games each, a moment fraught with danger against someone with a serve as powerful as Zverev’s.Zverev played his most aggressive game of the young night, whipping forehands that forced Djokovic to stretch on his backhand. Zverev inched ahead, and then Djokovic double-faulted to give the big German a chance to serve out the set. He did not waste it. Zverev won the opening set, just as Djokovic’s previous three opponents had.But Djokovic is as good at flipping the script as anyone who has ever picked up a racket.Berrettini has said Djokovic somehow gains energy from losing a set, rather than becoming demoralized. Just as he had in his last three matches, Djokovic raised the level of his game and surged to a second-set lead as Zverev began swatting untimely second serves into the net and getting lulled into the kinds of long rallies that are Djokovic’s strength. An hour-and-a-quarter after they began, Djokovic and Zverev were back where they started, all tied up.The turning point of the match came nearly an hour later. With Zverev serving to stay in the set, Djokovic put on a display of tennis genius and played a game that may be the one historians point to as the moment the finish line of the Grand Slam finally came into sight.No one in Arthur Ashe Stadium knew better than Zverev that rallying with Djokovic would result in a slow and painful death. And yet, somehow, Djokovic managed to play a kind of tennis Tai chi, sustaining rallies of 18, 32 and 12 shots to get to triple set point. Zverev survived rallies of 21 shots and an absurd 53 to save the first two.If he defeats Daniil Medvedev on Sunday, Djokovic can also become the career leader for singles wins by a man in the Slams, with 21.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThen, on the 15th shot of the sixth point of the game, he could do no better than float a desperate lob to Djokovic, who was waiting at the net to swat it down to take the lead for the first time all night.Zverev would not go quietly, though. He took a page out of the Djokovic playbook and somehow seemed to draw energy from falling behind. With Djokovic serving at 1-1, Zverev battled to turn the third game into a mini-marathon, digging in and clinching it with a slick forehand passing shot that Djokovic could not come close to touching. With Zverev’s serve cranking up beyond the 130 m.p.h mark, Djokovic could not find the opening to get even. Djokovic’s chance at history was down to a single set.Djokovic’s run to the precipice of the Grand Slam has had its share of five-set escapes. There was an early-round escape in Australia in February, when he overcame a torn abdominal muscle and the American Taylor Fritz. In Paris, he came back from two sets down to Lorenzo Musetti midway through the tournament and against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.Now came the chance for one more, and he did not waste any time jumping on it. Holding a 1-0 lead, Djokovic — and likely everyone else in the stadium — could sense Zverev growing shaky, the old Zverev returning. A double-fault gave Djokovic a sniff at a break at 15-30. A backhand error gave Djokovic the break point. Then one more rally went the wrong way for Zverev, and the set became a seemingly inevitable series of Zverev misses, including one leaping overhead smashed wildly out of bounds.One last backhand error for one last service break and after 3 hours and 35 minutes, Zverev was finally done.A match that could have gone either way, Zverev called it. “It went his way,” he said. “Very often it does.”And now the Grand Slam math becomes very, very simple: The only numbers that mattered were these — 27 matches down, one to go.Ben Solomon for The New York Times More

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      Novak Djokovic Beat Alexander Zverev, Will Play for Grand Slam at U.S. Open

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      Djokovic beat Alexander Zverev, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, and has a chance to become the first man since 1969 to win a calendar-year Grand Slam. He will play Daniil Medvedev in the final on Sunday.Twenty-seven down, one to go.With a five-set win over Alexander Zverev of Germany on Friday night, Novak Djokovic moved to within a single match victory of pulling off the most hallowed achievement in tennis.After winning the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon this year and knocking out his first challengers at the U.S. Open, Djokovic now has to defeat only Daniil Medvedev of Russia in Sunday’s final to become the first man to win the Grand Slam in a calendar year since Rod Laver did it in 1969.And he got there in style, coming from behind early on, then surviving an onslaught from an opponent who seemed for a time that he might just have Djokovic’s number. Zverev came close, forcing Djokovic to go the distance in a grueling 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win, but the razor-thin margin only made Djokovic’s number at the Grand Slams in 2021 seem even more mysterious.The win on Friday night set the stage for one of the most remarkable weekends in tennis. On Saturday, the teenage sensations Emma Raducanu of Britain and Leylah Fernandez of Canada, who have captivated their countries and the crowds at the U.S. Open, will compete for the women’s title in the unlikeliest of finals.Raducanu, 18 and ranked 150th in the world, was barely known two weeks ago and now is the first player to reach a Grand Slam final after making it into the main draw through the qualifying tournament. Fernandez, who turned 19 this week and is ranked 73rd, was until a few days ago known as little more than a scrappy, undersized battler whose future was anyone’s guess.On Sunday, Djokovic will take on Medvedev and play for history. He is tied with his biggest rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, in the race for the most career Grand Slam titles with 20, a competition that Djokovic is determined to win so he can cement his legacy as the greatest player ever. But that race may take a few more years to reach its conclusion. At this point, though, it is nearly impossible to believe that Federer and Nadal, who are battling age and injury, can win a calendar-year Grand Slam. It is the thing that would make Djokovic the biggest of the Big Three forever.Djokovic went into Friday night’s battle with the fourth-seeded Zverev after playing what he said were the three best sets of the tournament in a quarterfinal defeat of Matteo Berrettini: a four-set, come-from-behind win over a younger, bigger and more powerful opponent.Alexander Zverev won the opening set.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesDjokovic, 34, was going to need a repeat performance against Zverev, a so-called next generation star who has figured out in the last year how to keep his cool in the biggest moments. In the U.S. Open final last year, Zverev blew a two-set lead, and even served for the championship, only to lose to Dominic Thiem in a tiebreaker at the end of a fifth set that descended into a parade of slices, errors and double faults.That version of Zverev has disappeared in recent months, especially against Djokovic. In the Tokyo Olympics, Zverev roared back from a set and a service break down to overwhelm Djokovic in a semifinal.When the draw for the U.S. Open came out two weeks ago, a rematch with Zverev in the semifinal round loomed as one of the biggest potential obstacles for Djokovic in his hunt for his sport’s holy grail. Zverev, 24, stands 6 feet 6 inches tall, floats around the tennis court with the grace of an N.B.A. shooting guard, and can unleash 130 m.p.h serves and rocketing forehands at will when he is playing well.For the first time since the tournament began, though, the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium was firmly in Djokovic’s corner. He has long been far more respected than loved, but a former girlfriend has accused Zverev of abusing her repeatedly in 2019. No charges have been filed and Zverev has denied the allegations, but the off-the-court situation disqualified him from being embraced as an endearing underdog.Chants of “Nole” — Djokovic’s favored nickname — began early in the night and spurred him as he mounted his latest comeback.Fans react during the third set.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThe match started as so many others have for Djokovic — with an early hiccup that made the mountain he would have to climb that much steeper.This slip occurred as Djokovic served with the score tied at four games each, a moment fraught with danger against someone with a serve as powerful as Zverev’s.Zverev played his most aggressive game of the young night, whipping forehands that forced Djokovic to stretch on his backhand. Zverev inched ahead, and then Djokovic double-faulted to give the big German a chance to serve out the set. He did not waste it. Zverev won the opening set, just as Djokovic’s previous three opponents had.But Djokovic is as good at flipping the script as anyone who has ever picked up a racket.Berrettini has said Djokovic somehow gains energy from losing a set, rather than becoming demoralized. Just as he had in his last three matches, Djokovic raised the level of his game and surged to a second-set lead as Zverev began swatting untimely second serves into the net and getting lulled into the kinds of long rallies that are Djokovic’s strength. An hour-and-a-quarter after they began, Djokovic and Zverev were back where they started, all tied up.The turning point of the match came nearly an hour later. With Zverev serving to stay in the set, Djokovic put on a display of tennis genius and played a game that may be the one historians point to as the moment the finish line of the Grand Slam finally came into sight.Djokovic serving.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesNo one in Arthur Ashe Stadium knew better than Zverev that rallying with Djokovic would result in a slow and painful death. And yet, somehow, Djokovic managed to play a kind of tennis Tai chi, sustaining rallies of 18, 32 and 12 shots to get to triple set point. Zverev survived rallies of 21 shots and an absurd 53 to save the first two.Then, on the 15th shot of the sixth point of the game, he could do no better than float a desperate lob to Djokovic, who was waiting at the net to swat it down to take the lead for the first time all night.Zverev would not go quietly, though. He took a page out of the Djokovic playbook and somehow seemed to draw energy from falling behind. With Djokovic serving at 1-1, Zverev battled to turn the third game into a mini-marathon, digging in and clinching it with a slick forehand passing shot that Djokovic could not come close to touching. With Zverev’s serve cranking up beyond the 130 m.p.h mark, Djokovic could not find the opening to get even. Djokovic’s chance at history was down to a single set.Djokovic’s run to the precipice of the Grand Slam has had its share five-set escapes. There was an early round escape against in Australia in February, when he overcame a torn abdominal muscle and the American Taylor Fritz. In Paris, he came back from two sets down to Lorenzo Musetti midway through the tournament and against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.Now came the chance for one more, and he did not waste any time jumping on it. Holding a 1-0 lead, Djokovic — and likely everyone else in the stadium — could sense Zverev growing shaky. A double-fault gave Djokovic a sniff at a break at 15-30. A backhand error gave Djokovic the break point. Then one more rally went the wrong way for Zverev, and the set became a seemingly inevitable series of Zverev misses, including one leaping overhead smashed wildly out of bounds.One last backhand error for one last service break and after 3 hours and 35 minutes, Zverev was finally done, and the Grand Slam math was very, very simple: The only numbers that mattered were these — 27 matches down, one to go.Ben Solomon for The New York Times More

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      Novak Djokovic Plays Alexander Zverev in U.S. Open Semifinal

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      As he closes in on a rare calendar-year Grand Slam, Novak Djokovic has mastered readying himself for tennis as hand-to-hand combat.“A good fight.” “A battle.”This, invariably, is Novak Djokovic, late in the evening, often well past midnight, when another day of work is finally done, when the arena has emptied and he sits in front of a microphone, his piercing eyes an odd combination of glazed and steely, and he tries to put into words what he has just endured.To so many tennis players, their game exists as a kind of art. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the world’s third-ranked player, talks about tennis as a form of self-expression.To Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is No. 2 in the world rankings, tennis is a chess match, requiring the ability to think several shots ahead, to control the center of the court as though it is the center of a chess board, to make the quick moves needed to shift from defense to offense in an instant.Then there is Djokovic, the player who stands two matches away from pulling off the most hallowed achievement in the game — winning all four Grand Slams in the same calendar year. For Djokovic, tennis is not art, or ballet, and it is certainly not a game. It is combat, a street brawl in which there is only one survivor.“A battle.”“A good fight.”“I can go the distance,” he said as the clock ticked close to 1:30 a.m. Thursday, fittingly using a boxing expression after his 3 hour, 27 minute duel with Matteo Berrettini of Italy in the quarterfinals. “Actually I like to go the distance.”For nearly two weeks, Djokovic, the 34-year-old Serbian, has faced opponents who are younger, some by more than a decade. Several of them are bigger than he is, and seemingly far stronger. “I don’t want to wrestle with him,” Djokovic joked after beating Berrettini, his 25-year-old opponent, who is 6-foot-5 and more than 200 pounds.And yet, Djokovic has left all of them not just defeated but also beaten.Holger Rune, a cocky 18-year-old from Denmark who took a set off him in their first round match, could barely walk by the middle of the third set, crippled by cramping that set in after 90 minutes of chasing Djokovic’s blistering forehands to every corner of the court.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesJenson Brooksby, a 20-year-old American, gave Djokovic all he could handle for a set-and-a-half in the fourth round. But within a few more games, a medical trainer was hovering at his chair, treating him for a hip injury he aggravated during the unmatched physical test that playing Djokovic has become.The signature moments that night came when Djokovic followed up his on-the-run passing shots by staring down his 6-foot-4 foe.He said he wanted Brooksby “to feel” his presence on the court, to understand that he was facing someone with no intention of showing any mercy, no matter how hobbled he might be.“I wanted to wear him down,” he said of Brooksby, “and it worked.”Battlegrounds are familiar territory for Djokovic, a lover of wolves, the product of a region that was war-torn during his childhood. One of his coaches, Goran Ivanisevic, a Croatian, said that the Balkans bred people who are desperate to prove their resourcefulness to a world that, as he put it, expected nothing from you.For Djokovic, in so many ways, this U.S. Open has become a microcosm of a career marked not just by on-court battles with opponents, but by career-long fights against so many other forces in the game: fights against history, to do what no player has done before by taking the lead for most Grand Slam titles; against a tennisphere that so loved its binary duel between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and preferred not to have Djokovic crashing their Rafa-Roger lovefest. And there is the never-ending fight against the tens of thousands of tennis fans who come to his matches and roar for him to lose, caring little who the opponent is. (If Novak loses, Roger and Rafa win, their logic goes.)Frank Franklin II/Associated PressThe jeering jarred Djokovic on his first night here, as the crowd roared “ROOOOOON!” over and over and showed little appreciation for the start of Djokovic’s quest to achieve something that was considered too difficult in this era, with the three greatest-ever players competing all at once. He was terse in his on-court interview after Rune was finished. He abandoned his trademark gesture of pushing his heart out to the crowd. He was blunt in a post-match news conference.“Obviously you always wish to have the crowd behind you, but it’s not always possible,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”Two matches later, with the jeering reaching full throttle as Kei Nishikori tried to survive, Djokovic pulled off a series of impossible shots at the key moment of the third set. He put his finger to his ear after the first two, demanding the noise that finally surged behind him. After a third, he squinted and glared at the crowd as he sauntered to his chair for the changeover, sending a very clear message — I am going to beat him and I am going to beat you.Always, though, the primary fight is on the court, and it is a battle he begins with a head start, because the players on the receiving end of his blows have convinced themselves that nothing less than the best match of their lives will suffice.Sarah Stier/Getty Images“You have to be perfect,” Alexander Zverev, his semifinal opponent, who beat him at the Olympic Games in Tokyo six weeks ago, said earlier this week. “Most of the time you can’t be perfect. That’s why most of the time people lose to him. You have to win the match yourself. You have to be the one that is dominating the points.”Berrettini looked as though he might have a shot Wednesday night in the quarterfinal.Everything about Berrettini is big — his shoulders, his chest, the way he stalks the court and unleashes his booming serve and massive forehand, plus a Usain Bolt-like stride that sends him from the baseline to the net seemingly in three quick steps. For 80 minutes he took every blow Djokovic tried to land and gave it back, prevailing 7-5 in the first set, sending the teeming stadium packed with 23,000 fans into a frenzy.Djokovic, though, was just getting started, raising his level to win the next three games and making sure Berrettini knew how much more he was going to need to come up with to prevail.Within 40 minutes it was all even. Just before the three-hour mark, a few minutes past midnight, Djokovic was cruising toward the finish. Berrettini was still blasting 130 mile per hour serves, but Djokovic was somehow blasting them right back at his feet and onto the lines. When he ripped a crosscourt forehand that Berrettini could only watch whiz by, the big Italian slumped his shoulders and shook his head.Elsa/Getty ImagesOnce more, Berrettini said, Djokovic had made him sweat in a way other players never do, had taken his early shot square in the mouth when he lost the first set, just as he had to Berrettini in the Wimbledon final, and somehow come back to the court stronger.“He takes energy from that set that he lost,” Berrettini said.Berrettini had plenty of company in defeat. By midnight, when Djokovic had made it clear that his night would end just as all the others had, perhaps half the crowd had gone home. The only ones left chanted “Nole, Nole, Nole, Nole…,” inserting Djokovic’s nickname into the Ole chant.Once more he had fought them all, and won.“Five sets, five hours, whatever it takes,” he said in the bowels of the stadium, just before he left. “That’s why I’m here.” More