Djokovic hammers Berrettini in four sets
NEW YORK — Nobody knows better than Matteo Berrettini that winning the first set against Novak Djokovic doesn’t mean much.
But even armed with his first-hand experience in the Wimbledon final, when just a slight letdown opened the door for a Djokovic onslaught, Berrettini couldn’t stop history from repeating itself Wednesday night in the U.S. Open quarterfinals. He couldn’t stop history, period.
Berrettini, the 8th-ranked player in the world, has been little more than a traffic cone this year for Djokovic on his way to a potential calendar Grand Slam — worthy enough to be paid attention to, but easy enough to navigate around. For the third straight major, Djokovic faced a bit of trouble against the bighitting Italian but ultimately solved him, this time winning 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.
The win propels Djokovic into the semifinals, where he’s just two wins away from matching a feat last accomplished by Rod Laver in 1969 of winning all four Slams in the same year and also snatching the all-time major record of 21, which is currently shared with his contemporaries Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Waiting for him in the semifinals is Alexander Zverev, the 24-year old German who came within a couple points of winning the U.S. Open a year ago and defeated Djokovic this summer in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics.
“Against him you prepare that you have to play the best match that you can,” Zverev said Wednesday after advancing to the semifinals with a straight sets win over South Africa’s Lloyd Harris. “You have to be perfect, otherwise you will not win. Most of the time you can’t be perfect. That’s why most of the time people lose to him.”
For 1 hour, 17 minutes, Berrettini was perfect enough with his big serve-big forehand combination to give himself a chance.
After breaking at 5-5 with a scorching cross-court passing shot, Berrettini drew four unforced errors from Djokovic in a tight service game to wrap up the
first set.
It was the third match in a row at this tournament and ninth time this year in the Grand Slams that Djokovic has started from behind, including when Berrettini won the first set of the Wimbledon final in a tiebreaker. But all of those matches have followed a familiar pattern, with Djokovic immediately raising the level of his game and figuring out how to break his opponent down.
Prior to Wednesday’s match, Djokovic called Berrettini the “hammer of tennis,” and acknowledged that if he served well it would be a difficult match.
But Djokovic only needs the slightest of openings to start finding weaknesses.
When those 130 mile per hour missiles stopped finding the service box with the same frequency as they did in the first set, it allowed Djokovic to go to work on Berrettini’s backhand, a shot he can only use really to neutralize rallies in hopes of eventually setting up a forehand.
Without the ability to damage Djokovic at all from the backhand wing either with his slice or his two-hander, Berrettini was playing in quicksand. And as Djokovic got more comfortable getting Berrettini’s big serves back in play — he ended up winning 40% of the points when he had to return a first serve — the match devolved quickly into a highlight reel of passing shots and flicked winners that at times made
the Italian look silly. By the end, he seemed to be commanding the ball at will, if only to give him the opportunity to flex his muscles and exhort the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd into a reaction on demand.
It’s likely that Djokovic’s two toughest matches are still ahead in Zverev and potentially No. 2 Daniil Medvedev in the final. To stop Djokovic in any big match, the conventional wisdom is that it’s necessary to get the lead and play from ahead.
Though it’s probably better than the alternative, winning a first set from Djokovic hasn’t proven to be particularly problematic for him. In this tournament, it means he’s just getting warmed up.