Novak retired from the Western and Southern Open on Monday, which means he will be in real life in the future if he tries to finish a Grand Slam in the planned year at the US Open.
Djokovic composed at the highest level via a web-based medium that he “needs a little longer to recover from a seriously stressful adventure from Australia to Tokyo”.
He is 21-0 in Grand Slam activities in 2021 and won titles at the Australian Open on hard courts in February, the French Open on dirt courts in June and Wimbledon on grass courts in July. No man had won the first three major tennis titles – let alone each of the four – in a season since Rod Laver’s actual Grand Slam in 1969.
After Wimbledon, Djokovic went to the Tokyo Olympics in search of a Golden Slam – an individual golden award to receive each of the four major prizes in a lonely season – but failed to figure out how to win an award there in any way could .
The 34-year-old Serb lost in the individual elimination rounds against the German Alexander Zverev, then in the bronze medal against the Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta.
Djokovic also lost with accomplice Nina Stojanovic in the elimination rounds of the blended pairs and at this point withdrew from the game for the bronze medal.
The Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati will begin in one weekend. The basic draw for the US Open begins on August 30th in New York.
Last year Djokovic won his subsequent Western and Southern Open titles; The competition was held in Flushing Meadows, home of the US Open, as a feature of an unusual sequential arrangement of the two hard court events amid the Covid pandemic.
Djokovic wrote on Monday that he “will direct my focus and concentration on the US Open and invest a little more energy in the family. See you soon in New York! “
Laver wasn’t just looking for what might be a man’s fourth year-long slam – Laver did it twice in the 1960s; Don Budge did it in the 1930s – Djokovic will also try to secure his 21st professional title at the US Open. That would break the men’s 20s mark that he is currently sharing with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
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