Djoker equals Pistol Pete with 14th Slam

US OPEN Serb defeats Del Potro 63, 76, 63 to catch up with his idol Sampras

He sobbed in the locker room after the defeat, and he was crying again an hour later, with a group of his friends from his home city of Tandil, Argentina, gathered around him in a tight circle in the player garden.

“I’m very sad for being a loser today,” del Potro said. “But Novak deserved to take the trophy. He played a great match, a very smart game.

I had my opportunities during the second and third set. But I was playing almost to the limit all the time, looking for winners with my forehand, backhands. And I couldn’t make it because Novak was there every time.”

It is difficult, even for a player as powerful as del Potro, to knock down a wall, and that was often what Djokovic resembled on the gritty blue surface.

Then again, that metaphor has its limits because walls do not run. Djokovic seemed to be everywhere at times: extending rallies or finishing them off with winners, often in the forecourt.

The actress Meryl Streep was not acting when she put her hands to her face, looking like something Edvard Munch might have painted, after one particularly thunderous del Potro winner. But more often than not, Djokovic managed to retrieve del Potro’s signature shot and maintain the suspense and the frustration. It takes great energy and resilience to play Djokovic’s style of tennis, but his eyes were often wide amid the tussle, enjoying the process again after the burnout and injuries that knocked him off the top rung in men’s tennis after he last reached the final here in 2016.

This year, he had surgery to repair a right elbow problem in early February after playing the Australian Open with a sheath on his right arm and an abbreviated service motion.“if you told me in February this year when I got the surgery that I’ll win Wimbledon, US Open, and Cincinnati, would be hard to believe.” Djokovic said.