NEW YORK—Novak Djokovic did not seek to keep his thoughts to himself on court Saturday, the way he mostly did through his first two US Open matches. Instead, he let it all out, slapping his chest or sneering with a fist raised to celebrate success, pointing to his ear to ask the crowd for noise.
This was the Djokovic everyone is so accustomed to seeing—yes, winning on the Grand Slam stage, of course, as he always does in this magical season, but also animated and into it, encouraging the spectators to join him for the ride on his path toward tennis history.
Taking another step in his bid to complete the first calendar-year Slam by a man in more than a half-century, Djokovic moved into the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the 14th consecutive appearance, coming back to beat Kei Nishikori, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.
“I don’t plan to have those kind of emotional moments on the court, whether good or bad. It just happens,” Djokovic said. “In the heat of the battle, when you feel like the moment is very important…you just want to get those things out of yourself, out of your system—try to, I guess, ride on that energy wave that you create, whether it’s with yourself, whether it’s with the crowd.”
So the No. 1-seeded Djokovic managed to avoid the rash of upsets that have hit the tournament, but the top-seeded woman, Ash Barty, did not. A day after defending champion Naomi Osaka and two of the top five men, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev were beaten, Barty blew a big lead in the final set and lost to 43rd-ranked Shelby Rogers of the US, 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (5) on Saturday night.
Rogers was a quarterfinalist in New York a year ago, while Barty owns titles from the French Open in 2019 and Wimbledon this July but never has been past the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.
Image courtesy of AP