It has been the story of Djokovic’s tournament in NY, having had a walkover in the second round and retirement in the third. When Djokovic is at his best, his returns, court coverage and groundstrokes are as it good as it gets in today’s game.
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So far in this year’s tournament, 10 players in the men’s draw either have retired during a match or, in one case, withdrawn with injury shortly before it was time to play.
Andy Murray dropped seven consecutive games after a let call caused by a loud noise in the arena’s speaker system during a fourth-set point and lost to Kei Nishikori 1-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the U.S. Open quarterfinals on Wednesday.
The match began predictably, and depressingly, enough for Monfils.
On Tuesday, she was two points away from taking the first set when she served for it at 5-4, but she got broken there. Then Monfils adopted a “rope-a-dope” suite of tactics.
Since then, Djokovic hasn’t been pushed. “He took chances. He came to the net”.
Commentators, spectators, pundits all were baffled, unsure if Monfils was tanking, or pursuing some harebrained strategy. That led Monfils to try a different strategy, which resulted in commentator John McEnroe calling him out on ESPN for tanking. Others used words like “bizarre” and “absurd”. The process wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. He said, “Everyone is like, ‘Play tennis like this”. He is better than me. There were two one-way sets in which Monfils hardly looked like a player who wanted to win.
It’s now left to be seen whether Djokovic will win again or Monfils will be able to score the biggest upset of his career and book his place in the finals. But it’s also undeniable that Monfils dramatic shift of tactics turned a potentially ghastly blowout into a unusual, sharp-edged, but fairly competitive match. “He’s been playing good tennis”, said Nishikori who has a double target this weekend. They periodically booed Monfils.
The top seed saved a break point in the fifth game of the first set before his opponent gifted him the breakthrough in the next with a series of unforced errors, including three double faults. But Monfils hasn’t lost a set. Even if I had no injury it would be tough to beat her, said Sevastova. “The guy is killing me, you know. Just embrace that the guy is too good for me and I tried to switch strategy”.
Novak Djokovic’s right wrist is the most relieved wrist in Flushing. Shes No. 2. So probably this is the difference between us, said Vinci.
In the second set, Vinci won only 10 points.
A merciless Djokovic then served out the set at love, firing a 118 miles per hour (189.9 Km/h) ace – his first of the contest – on set point.
“I was completely caught off-guard”, Djokovic acknowledged.
Shortly after the match, McEnroe summed up his disappointment in Monfils performance. “It doesn’t bring much respect among fellow players in the locker room, none”.
“Humid”, he said. “That’s all we were thinking about and feeling the last couple of sets”.
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However, he was even more agitated by Monfils’s curious decision to stand bolt upright inside the baseline waving his racquet airily at the ball.
