Djokovic, Gauff Advance At Steamy US Open

AFP/APP

New York: Defending champion Novak Djokovic advanced to the third round of the US Open on Wednesday after his opponent, Laslo Djere, retired in the third set. Despite the victory, Djokovic acknowledged the need to improve his performance if he aims to capture his fifth title on the hard courts of New York.

Djokovic was leading 6-4, 6-4, 2-0 when Djere withdrew from the match, which had been a gritty contest with both players requiring treatment from the physio on Arthur Ashe Stadium. Reflecting on the match, Djokovic said, “It’s not what we want to see. He’s such a good player in these conditions, and the second set should have been his; he was 4-2 up. I don’t know if winning the second set probably put more burden on him.”

This win marked Djokovic’s 90th US Open match victory, making him the first man to achieve 90 wins at all four Grand Slam tournaments. However, it was a hard-fought battle until Djere retired. Djokovic secured the first break of the match to take the opening set 6-4 after an intense hour, then sought treatment for trouble on his right side.

Djere, who was the only player to take a set off Djokovic at last year’s US Open, broke first in the second set and had a 4-2 lead with two more break points, but Djokovic won the next six games. Djere received treatment for an abdominal issue before Djokovic closed out the second set. “Overall, it was a big fight—over two hours for two sets,” Djokovic noted. “I served awful.

So playing without the serve, you have to grind, you have to run. I had to rely on my baseline game.” Djokovic, fresh off an emotional Paris Olympics triumph, will next face Australian Alexei Popyrin, whom he has defeated at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year.

In the women’s draw, defending champion Coco Gauff overcame her own struggles with serving to beat 37-year-old Tatjana Maria 6-4, 6-0. Despite an inconsistent season since capturing her maiden major in New York, the 20-year-old Gauff managed to win the last seven games to seal the victory.

“I think I played well overall,” Gauff commented. “I think if I could have served better, that first set would have been a lot easier.”

Djokovic and Gauff avoided the worst of the steamy conditions that led tournament organizers to invoke the extreme weather rule, allowing mid-match breaks.

Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka, who was last year’s runner-up to Gauff, breezed through her match against Italian Lucia Bronzetti, winning 6-3, 6-1 in an hour.

Sabalenka noted, “I told myself you have to stay focused from the first point to the last point and make sure you’re not going to stay here a crazy number of hours.”

In other matches, fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany advanced with a 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 victory over France’s Alexandre Muller. “I am happy to be done in three sets, to have some rest as it is very hot and tough conditions,” Zverev said, adding that he felt fine but “was at some point very wet.”

Zverev will next face Argentina’s Tomas Etcheverry, who overcame compatriot Francisco Cerundolo in a five-set battle that lasted more than four hours. “You had to hydrate well, try to take as many salts and hydrates as possible, and I overdid it that’s why I ended up vomiting,” Etcheverry said, after firing 23 aces to clinch the win. “It’s dangerous not only for the players but also for the public.”

Elsewhere, sixth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev and Czech Jiri Lehecka both battled through five sets to set up a third-round meeting. Rublev, a four-time US Open quarter-finalist, defeated France’s Arthur Rinderknech 4-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, while Lehecka outlasted American Mitchell Krueger 6-7 (5/7), 0-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5. Rublev also called for medical staff after drinking so much water that he felt like he had “a baby” in his stomach.

Meanwhile, seventh-seeded Paris Olympics gold medallist Zheng Qinwen had to rally from a set down for the second straight match to beat Russian Erika Andreeva 6-7 (3/7), 6-1, 6-2. However, eighth-seeded Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova became the biggest upset victim of the tournament so far, losing 6-4, 7-5 to Romanian qualifier Elena-Gabriela Ruse.