Novak Djokovic beats Taylor Fritz to reach semi-finals

One of the favorites of the US Open Serb Novak Djokovic continues his confident progress on the grid. Having beaten the ninth racket of the world Taylor Fritz in three games, he reached the semi-final stage at the Grand Slam tournaments for the 47th time, setting a record for this indicator. Djokovic’s next opponent, who has held his own against the United States for 30 games in a row, will be another American, 20-year-old Ben Shelton.

There was no doubt that Novak Djokovic would feel comfortable on the far and near approaches to the decisive stages of the US Open, after the first draw for this tournament was successful for him, and then during the first week of the struggle in the lower half of the grid one after another you were several representatives of the top ten are the Dane Holger Rune, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and the Norwegian Kasper Ruud. And although the Serb’s path to the semifinals still cannot be called completely smooth – in the third round he unexpectedly lost two games to compatriot Laszlo Dzhera – in general, the Grand Slam champion unequivocally justifies the status of the favorite of the current competition.

Djokovic’s opponent in the quarter-finals, Taylor Fritz, has been consistently in the Top 10 for 11 months and has served only once in the previous four matches in New York. But neither this worthy background, nor the support of the public, which, of course, ardently cheered for the American, helped him to jump above his head.

Fritz lost to Djokovic for the eighth time in a row – 1:6, 4:6, 4:6, as a result of which the Serbian set his next record, this time in terms of the number of exits to the semi-finals in the majors.

Now he has 47 of them, one more than Roger Federer, and these two are very far ahead of the rest. For example, Rafael Nadal reached the semi-final stage of the main tennis competitions 38 times, the legendary Jimmy Connors, who shone on the courts of the world a little less than half a century ago, 31, and Pete Sampras, the king of tennis of the 1990s, eighth in this indicator, only 23, then there are more than two times less often than Djokovic. Simply amazing statistics, which are explained by the extraordinary sports longevity of the 36-year-old Serb, who first got into the top four in the majors 16 years ago at Roland Garros.

Djokovic also extended his streak of winning matches against the US tennis players, which began shortly after the defeat in the 1/8 finals of Wimbledon in 2016 from John Isner, by defeating Fritz, has already reached 30 meetings and will most likely continue on Friday. The fact is that in the semi-finals Novak Djokovic will meet with another American – 20-year-old Ben Shelton, who coped with his much more famous compatriot, last year’s semi-finalist Francis Tiafoe, and reached the semi-finals for the first time at the Grand Slam tournaments.

The 193-cm son of former world No. 55 Brian Shelton, who once was a prominent figure in the tournaments of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and reached the fourth round of Wimbledon, has already guaranteed himself a place in the top twenty and has outgrown his father in almost all meanings. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to imagine that on Friday he will be able to stop Djokovic himself. To do this, the young left-hander, who has reached the maximum of his abilities, will need serious help from a stellar veteran. And there seems to be no signal that he is ready to provide it.

Evgeny Fedyakov