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Novak Djokovic had to overcome more difficulties than expected to overcome American Taylor Fritz, especially in the first two sets. Nole showed some small cracks during the tournament (excluding the devastating victory against Adrian Mannarino) but he still reached the semi-finals of teh Australian Open 2024. A champion like him then lives in clutch moments, he gets excited when the decisive time arrives, in order to bite the prey.
"I made more aces than him and it's a sensational thing, he has one of the best serves on the circuit, and that helped me a lot. I'm satisfied with how my first two sets went. It was a pretty warm day today, obviously we played the first game of 16 minutes and it really took a lot out of me, the first set was very hard fought and in some ways it was exhausting. It's true, I suffered in the first two sets but after that I managed to find my feet.
He he started very aggressively, he put me in difficulty and he served great. It was an important fight and playing in the first two sets, then I think in the third set and in the fourth things went better. I started to feel better. on the court and serving, things improved after the first two sets," explained Nole at the press conference.
The Serbian champion has thus reached the semifinals at the Australian Open for the 11th time, where Jannik Sinner will be waiting for him. The Italian won in straight sets against the Russian Andrey Rublev.
And the Serb is shattering records, literally every match he plays! 24 Slams, 40 ATP Masters 1000, 7 ATP Finals of the Finals (7), the record of weeks as ATP No.1, just to underline the most important ones.
But by beating Fritz in the Melbourne quarter-finals, Nole became the only tennis player to reach the semi-finals of all four Grand Slam tournaments at least 11 times. At the Roland Garros and at Wimbledon he did it 12 times. However, the record is at the US Open, with 13 times.
📍Novak Djokovic 🇷🇸 se convierte en el primer tenista con once presencias en semifinales de los cuatro Grand Slam (All-Time/Men’s Singles):
— MisterOnly.Tennis (@OnlyRogerCanFly) January 23, 2024
🔵 Australian Open | 11
🟠 Roland Garros | 12
🟢 Wimbledon | 12
🔵 US Open | 13 pic.twitter.com/lnaD7XRui6
Fritz praises Djokovic and rips the Australian Open board
Fritz fought for almost four hours and showed that he was competitive, but in the end the American tennis player had to give up, despite evident progress. The US moved up three places in the rankings to the No.9 spot.
In the post-match press conference, Fritz analyzed his match, also praising his formidable opponent.
"I'm satisfied, I played at a very high level for the first two sets and they were two very tough sets. It was about two and a half hours when we finished the two sets and in the end that's the problem, you have to get to the point where I stay competitive at this level for five hours. I think one of the most important things is the fact that he manages to be competitive and play without making mistakes.
It definitely makes you work really hard and makes big winners too. In the end on my second he always manages to respond to me from the baseline and never makes a mistake. It's tough when the opponent doesn't give away free points and you have to work on every point. 15 break points in the first two sets? It was fantastic to get to this, at a certain point I was aware that he deserved the break and I managed to follow them. Maybe I could have served better and in that case I definitely would have had fewer serving problems," he explained.
The journalist asked Fritz if he has seen Djokovic differently in the last 5 years.
"No, he's still the same and he's always very good. At the beginning I played, then I served and he punished me."
Returning to talk about the quarterfinal match, Fritz attacked the tournament organizers, underlining the lack of respect towards the athletes: "I needed free points, but they didn't arrive. I was terrible on serve, it was a terrible two and a half hours. It's not easy to go out in the middle of the day with the warm-up and play three sets out of five, something should be done for us athletes, especially when we finish playing in the evening and if you finish playing at 2 in the morning, then between preparation and conferences it ends at 5. You have to have respect for us players."