Novak Djokovicnumber two in the world, continuously advanced this Friday to the semifinals of the Cincinnati Masters 1,000, by defeating the American Taylor Fritz 6-0 and 6-4nine.
The Serbian, champion of this tournament in 2018 and 2020, will play in the semifinals against German Alexander Zverevwhile, on the other side of the table, Carlos Alcaraz will face Polish Hubert Hurkacz.
Nole, 36, had no choice in Fritz and defeated him in just 61 minutes to add his seventh victory to the precedent seven against the North American.
The Serbian will play in the ninth semifinal of his career in Cincinnatia tournament that marks his return to the United States for the first time since 2021.
For the past two years, he has not been able to participate in the North American tours, in Indian Wells and Miami or in August, because of his refusal to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
This is a class of tennis from the first to the last point of Djokovicthat I only needed twenty minutes to win the first set 6-0.
gg.didomi.doWhenConsent(!window.didomiBypass, ‘c:twitterwi-wUmBnnKy’, function () {
var x = document.createElement(‘script’);
x.setAttribute(“type”,”text/javascript”);
x.setAttribute(“src”, “//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”);
x.setAttribute(“charset”, “utf-8”);
$(“.twitter-tweet”).closest( “span” ).append(x);
});
The Serbian, who warmed up on the same center court a few hours before the match, it was hard to handle for Fritz, who made a long series of gratuitous mistakes which prevented him from competing.
The American, frustrated by several misses, threw his racket on the ground before sitting down with a 6-0 lead.
It was at that moment, however, when he let out his pride and raised the bar in the second round.. He broke on Djokovic’s first turn to serve and held the lead to 4-3.
In the seventh game, Djokovic managed to recover the ‘break’ and he regained the momentum to get a new break, in the ninth, which paved the way to the final 6-4.
The game was played in a central court full of fans, who stayed for more than fifteen minutes in the stands at the end of the game to chant the name ‘Nole’.
The Serb stayed for several minutes signing autographstouring different sides of the track to satisfy many followers.
His opponent in the semifinals was Zverev, who beat Frenchman Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 6-3 on the Grand Stand track and increased his record against the Frenchman, world number 32, to 8-0.
The German has an open streak of nine victories in Cincinnati, where he is champion in 2021 and where he missed last year due to a serious ankle injury suffered at Roland Garros.
Zverev beat Russian Daniil Medvedev in the previous round and getting back to feeling good for the US Open.
On Thursday, he said he was able to beat Medvedev also thanks to some advice Carlos Alcaraz gave him during a golf game last week in Toronto.
The last difficult season dropped him to position 17 in the ranking, but in the semifinals reached in Cincinnati he was sure of placing twelfth From next monday.
Djokovic has won seven of eleven precedents with Zverevthe latter in the semifinals of the 2021 US Open. However, the German won the final duel, at the 2021 ATP Finals in Turin.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Robert Maynard, and I am a passionate journalist with experience in sports writing. For the last few years, I have been writing for Today Times Live. My main focus has been on sports-related stories and features. With my strong background in journalism and extensive knowledge of the industry, I am able to provide readers with well-crafted pieces that are both informative and engaging.
