“The first complete match I played was a first-round night session”, Djokovic said on court afterwards.
Advertisement
You can beat the thirteenth seed and twentieth seed, as Edmund did in the past week, but the cliff face becomes way steeper when the opposition is a fully-focussed world No 1.
Former world no 1 Wozniacki, the runner-up in 2009 and 2014, downed American eighth seed Madison Keys 6-3 6-4 on Sunday to make the last-eight in NY for a fifth time. Not that I didn’t believe in my game but it’s nice to actually do it on a big stage against some good players, two top-20 players and a guy that was playing well. I thought I came out of the blocks and played high intensity.
Edmund, playing in a Grand Slam fourth round for the first time, barely got a look-in during the first two sets against the world number one and defending champion, who booked a last-eight meeting with ninth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2 victor over American Jack Sock.
‘I want to wish Kyle all the best. “To play the world No1 on the biggest tennis court in the world, it doesn’t get much better than that”.
“I learned a lot from tonight”, Edmund said. He has reached at least the quarterfinals at 29 of the past 30 Grand Slam tournaments – the exception was his loss in the third round of Wimbledon in June against Sam Querrey.
The British number three could not buy a hold of serve as Djokovic continued to pile on the pressure, moving to 0-40 on serve once again.
However, having dominated proceedings against Edmund in the late night start on Arthur Ashe, he once again had to be worked on by the trainer during the match, who treated his right arm and serving shoulder. “He is only 21 and playing his first Arthur Ashe match, so he deserves applauds”.
“He beat Gasquet, he beat Isner”.
“For someone of his age he’s showing mental maturity, no doubt”. I really wanted to start the match well today because I didn’t have much time on the court overall before the fourth round.
In the following game the world number one had two break point chances to extend his lead but the Brit forced the Serb into making errors.
Advertisement
Nevertheless, Edmund is set to reach the edge of the top 50 on the back of his results in NY and he carries great momentum into Britain’s Davis Cup semi-final against Argentina later this month. “I’m really glad to be back”, he said. But I need something else.
