NEW YORK — On the fifth day, the king of tennis left the building.
Twenty-four hours after Carlos Alcaraz got booted from the U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic, the defending champion and 24-time Grand Slam winner, followed him out the door. The big-serving and suddenly lethal Australian, Alexei Popyrin, put him into the scrap pile of men’s seeds at this year’s tournament, winning 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.
While the No. 1 seed, Jannik Sinner, is still standing, these two results in two nights have blown up the U.S. Open. Grand Slam near-misses, like Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev, and a cast of home dreamers desperate to become the first American man to win a Grand Slam since 2003, are suddenly alive.
Djokovic’s loss was both perfectly explainable and altogether stunning, all at once.
He is 37, two-and-a-half months removed from knee surgery. A month ago, he recorded perhaps the most emotional triumph of his career, a jaw-dropping win over Alcaraz to capture Olympic gold, the one major tennis prize that had eluded him.
Novak Djokovic knew he would win Olympic gold – he just didn’t know when
He played that tournament on clay. He didn’t play a match on a hard court until his first win at this year’s tournament in New York, Monday night over Moldovan Radu Albot. The win at the Olympics — his first title of the year — rejuvenated him, but he still said that he had completed everything he wanted in his career.
As a tennis player, he was complete.
Read more on Popyrin’s victory here.
