The fallout from the shock: Djokovic’s biggest goals for the year are already gone

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The 15,000 fans in Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena witness the seemingly impossible. Novak Djokovic (36) loses a match at the Australian Open. He lost. That hadn’t happened down under for 33 games. Or to put it another way: since January 22, 2018, when he lost in three sets to the South Korean Chung Hyeon (27) in the round of 16. After that, he won the title in all his participations – he missed 2022 due to the lack of a corona vaccination.

Now it is Italian shooting star Jannik Sinner (22) who knocks out the ten-time Aussie Open champion. Not in any way, but in a high arc and in four sentences in which Sinner plays the unusually flawed record man against the wall, especially in the beginning.

“Jannik absolutely deserves to be in the final. He played me completely. I was shocked on my own level. “That was one of my worst Grand Slam matches that I can remember,” the visibly exhausted Serbian said at the press conference afterwards.

He is not leaving Court behind (yet).

It is an extremely painful start to the new season for Djokovic. His biggest goals for the year have disappeared in one fell swoop: the calendar slam (or ‘Grand Slam’), which was last won in 1969 by a certain Rod Laver (85) for the men, will also not take place in 2024. The plan to finally win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year is no longer possible. The same applies to the so-called ‘Golden Slam’, where the Olympic victory is also counted in addition to the four major titles.

Djokovic also missed another important record in Melbourne: had he won the tournament, he would have left Australian Margaret Court (81) ahead and become the most successful cross-gender tennis player of all time with 25 Grand Slam points. titles.

But like Court, he remains 24 years old and now desperately needs to be on the books for the rest of the season. After Carlos Alcaraz (20) at Wimbledon, Sinner is now the second up-and-coming youngster to challenge him for his place in the sun.

But still, and that will be his only consolation today, he remains number one in the world. It doesn’t matter who ultimately triumphs in Melbourne. And he also says: “I still have high goals for this season, including the Olympics. Just because I lost here doesn’t mean this is the beginning of my end. Even though some people will probably describe it that way.”

Source : Blick