During the early hours of this morning (GMT), Novak Djokovic sealed his 24th Grand Slam in a fantastic victory at Flushing Meadows. An impressive performance from Djokovic saw Daniil Medvedev fall short in the final.
The first notable point about the match was the absence of the young Spaniard, Carlos Alcaraz. Medvedev knocked out the number one seed in the semi-finals, despite Alcaraz defeating Djokovic at Wimbledon just two months ago, for his second-ever Grand Slam.
Djokovic won all three sets in the match, but it was far from an easy win...
Set One
The "Joker" won the first set fairly convincingly, with a 6-3 result. The 36-year-old looked like he was on track for a comfortable victory, against a player with only one Grand Slam to his name at 27 years old.
Set Two
The second set of the match was starkly different to the first. Medvedev's famously strong serve saw him winning the majority of his serving games. During the second half of the set, Medvedev maintained a strong position - always either ahead on games, or drawing. Every time Djokovic drew level, Medvedev's specialty serve would allow him to win the following game. As a more senior player, Djokovic appeared to be struggling with the intensity of the match, making many mistakes and double faults. As almost every game went to deuce, the set dragged on longer and longer, and it looked to be in Medvedev's hands; the set lasted a total of 1 hour and 44 minutes, favouring Medvedev's young stamina. However, Djokovic managed to just hold on; he won the 12th game of the set to draw level at 6-6. As the tiebreak commenced, the momentum appeared to have shifted into the Serbian's hands - a comfortable tiebreak period saw Djokovic's experience give him the edge. 2 sets up, it appeared that the Championship was all but over.
Set Three
A 104-minute long set (which ended in huge disappointment) had certainly taken its toll on the underdog. A third set almost as easy as the first saw Djokovic cruise past Medvedev with the crowd's praise louder than ever. Medvedev looked completely defeated, and Djokovic went home as the oldest-ever Champion of the US Open at Flushing Meadows.
Summary
Even at 36 years old, Djokovic is still the greatest player in the world - with three out of the four 2023 Grand Slams, just falling short at Wimbledon. Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev will be disappointed to hear that he confirmed: "I am going to keep going". The record-breaker will be back in 2024 to potentially dominate the world of men's singles for another year.
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