2024-09-01 03:01:00
The defeat of Tomás Etcheverry in the early hours of the morning against the German Alexander Zverev left the US Open without Argentines, a competition that suffered a major surprise with the fall of Novak Djokovic against the Australian Alexei Popyrin also in the evening session on Friday.
Despite playing a great match, Etcheverry fell 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 and 6-3 after more than three and a half hours of fighting, in a duel that was decided by the German’s greater hierarchy and experience. The Argentine had chances in the second set, when he led 4-2, and in the last, when he could have broken to go 4-2 up. As he did not finish, the German did not forgive him.
Meanwhile, a day after the elimination of the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, the one who said goodbye prematurely was the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who fell 6-4, 6-4, 2-6 and 6-4 in three hours and 20 minutes of play. The Olympic champion was far from his best, committed 13 double faults – many of which cost him service games – and was very self-critical after the match. “If you play on a fast surface like this without the serve, without the ability to win free points there, with a very low percentage of first serves and many double faults, you cannot win,” analyzed Djokovic, who stressed that he has not yet recovered from the physical and mental effort that winning the gold medal in Paris 2024 meant.
“It obviously had an effect. I spent a lot of energy to win gold, and I came to New York not feeling fresh mentally and physically,” said the Serbian. “But because it’s the US Open, I tried and did the best I could. I didn’t have any physical problems. I just felt drained of energy and it showed in the way I played,” he lamented.