FRIDAY’S WEATHER Mix of sun and clouds, hot and humid.
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Djokovic will now take on Stan Wawrinka in the US Open final after Wawrinka won his semifinal match against Japan’s Kei Nishikori.
Third-seeded Wawrinka withstood an early onslaught from sixth-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan, asserting himself in the later stages to claim a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-2 victory. “First question is, like, ‘You’re not competing?’ …”
However, he was unable to replicate that excellent performance against Wawrinka, who will now face Novak Djokovic in the final.
TODAY ON TV 3-6 p.m. Should Djokovic win, it will be his third title at the US Open. A back and forth net exchange between the pair ended as Monfils hit a lob that Djokovic managed to push back with a behind the back overhead smash, but the smash wasn’t strong enough and Monfils ripped a backhand down the line that caught the net and fortunately for him, still landed over the other side of the court to finally get the opening hold of the set.
The ultimate outcome was only briefly in the balance, though.
“Stan is a big match player”, Djokovic said when asked about the Swiss, who has won his last 10 finals. In the fourth, both men tried to buy time between points on a steamy day with the temperature reaching 90 degrees and humidity topping 50 percent.
“Specifically, before this Grand Slam, there were things that were happening with my health and my physical state that were, you know, making me a little bit skeptical about how the thing was going to go during the tournament”, he said.
On ESPN’s telecast, John McEnroe blasted the No. 10 seed Frenchman for a lack of effort.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd roared, and Kerber celebrated by raising her right hand and wagging her index finger in the air, as if to remind Pliskova – and the world – “I’m No. 1!”
When told of McEnroe’s comments, Monfils said: “I’m very sad to hear that”.
The latter quality was evident in his victory over Nishikori, who played a superb opening set and made the first break of the second, only to start struggling in the hard conditions and in the face of Wawrinka’s power.
Instead of his usual crouch preparing to return serves, alert and with elbows on knees, Monfils casually stood upright at the baseline, without a worry in the world, looking like someone waiting to place his takeout espresso order. During points, Monfils would hit slices or make halfhearted, half-swinging strokes, then occasionally wallop a 100 miles per hour passing shot.
“The guy is too good”, Monfils said.
“I had to wait and fight and make him a bit uncomfortable and he started to get exhausted”.
Somehow, the tactic was effective, for a short while, anyway. I had to change a little bit. “But I guess that was part of his tactics”. “It was really exhausting because the opponent I played loves to stay in the back of the court and always being another ball back”.
Mate Pavic of Croatia and Laura Siegemund of Germany won the U.S. Open mixed doubles championship in their first tournament together, beating the American duo of Rajeev Ram and CoCo Vandeweghe 6-4, 6-4 in the final Friday.
That’s because Djokovic enjoyed the easiest path to a major semifinal in the almost half-century of the Open era: Three of his first five foes pulled out of because of injuries. Then came this 2½-hour miniseries, topping them all for oddness.
In the second set, Monfils lost five consecutive games, and limped afterward. Those boos intensified when he missed a forehand early in the third set and got even louder when he hit a double fault to drop serve. All over but the shouting, right? Nope. In a blink, Monfils suddenly came to life. There is a reason he’s been top five for a long time now.
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When it comes to the big matches, nobody comes close to Djokovic at the moment. Then abracadabra and boom, out of nowhere, the Frenchman blew Djokovic apart to race to a 5-2 lead. Kerber had pulled out of a tournament a week earlier due to a shoulder injury, and she required medical treatment at Roland Garros.
