Daniil Medvedev Routs Novak Djokovic to Win the U.S. Open Title (Published 2021) (2024)

Daniil Medvedev wins the U.S. Open as Novak Djokovic falls short of a Grand Slam.

With a startling display of power and creativity, Daniil Medvedev upset Djokovic, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, in the final of the U.S. Open on Sunday, ending Djokovic’s bid to become the first man in 52 years to win all four Grand Slam tournaments in a calendar year. It was one last twist in a tournament that overflowed with stunning performances.

For at least another year, Rod Laver will remain the lone member of the most exclusive club in modern men’s tennis, and the 2021 U.S. Open will forever belong primarily to an 18-year-old British woman named Emma Raducanu, who went from being the 150th-ranked player to a Grand Slam champion in the most unlikely tennis tale of them all.

This was supposed to be Djokovic’s moment, the day that he would finally surge past Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and officially become the greatest player of all time.

Instead, whatever spirits pull the strings of this uniquely exasperating sport intervened in the form of a lanky 25-year-old Russian, a neighbor of Djokovic’s in their adopted home of Monaco who is sure now to create any number of awkward encounters at Monte Carlo’s cafes and grocery stores and at the local tennis club where both of them train.

Medvedev started fast, breaking Djokovic’s serve in the first game of the match and giving Djokovic few chances to take the first set. That was not supposed to matter. Djokovic, 34, had been shaky early in matches for two weeks, before raising his level and storming back for win after win. Surely, he would flip the script once more.

And he had the opening, three break points on Medvedev’s first service game, and then another with Medvedev serving at 1-2 in the second set, when the sound system malfunctioned and interrupted one of Medvedev’s serves, giving him a fresh chance to save the game.

When Medvedev took that point and then another, the weight of it all finally broke the man who had seemed unbreakable. Djokovic dismantled his racket with a violent smack on a court that had delivered him so many championships before.

A game later, Medvedev curled a backhand onto Djokovic’s toes as he charged to the net, and when Djokovic’s volley floated long, the chance to crush a dream was just a few more games and one set away.

“He was going for huge history,” Medvedev said. “Knowing that I managed to stop him, it definitely makes it sweeter.”

Djokovic had beaten Medvedev most recently in a lopsided battle in February for his ninth Australian Open title, a moment that seems a lifetime ago, when no one was talking about anyone winning a Grand Slam.

And yet, when the draw for the U.S. Open came out two weeks ago, it looked daunting for Djokovic. Matteo Berrettini, the big-serving Italian, loomed in the quarterfinals. Alexander Zverev, the talented German who knocked off Djokovic at the Olympics and was the hottest player in the world at the start of this tournament, was likely to be his semifinal foe. And if Djokovic could get through those players, he was most likely going to meet Medvedev, the world’s second best player, whose game, a beguiling mix of power and spins, seems to grow more dangerous with each passing month. He was a fitting final obstacle for Djokovic in the hunt for their sport’s biggest prize.

Medvedev stands 6 feet 6 inches tall and is as skinny as a bamboo pole. At first glance, he looks like nobody’s idea of a professional athlete. He will scurry around the court creating shots that few can see coming, then bomb an ace or pound a flat backhand down the line.

Coming into the tournament, conventional wisdom held that the only way to beat Djokovic was to take the racket out of his hands with so many unreturnable balls that one of the greatest defenders in the sport would not be able to survive the onslaught.

Medvedev did that and so much more, pushing Djokovic back on his heels and handcuffing him at the net on those handful of points that decide every tennis match, with history on the line and 23,000 fans desperate to witness it.

For Djokovic, the loss delivered a disappointment that practically no one but Serena Williams could understand. She had been the last player to enter the year’s final major championship with a shot at the Grand Slam. She, too, fell to an underdog, Roberta Vinci of Italy, on the same court in Arthur Ashe Stadium, in the 2015 semifinals.

On a personal level, this loss most likely stung Djokovic in a way that Williams may never have felt. Djokovic has spent most of his adult life chasing legends who claimed this sport as their own just a few years before he burst onto the scene. He proved early on that he could be the equal of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, then sagged back, only to come back stronger and repeat the cycle time and again.

He entered this tournament tied with Federer and Rafael Nadal in the race for the most career Grand Slam titles, with 20. He desperately wants that record, to seal his legacy as the greatest player in tennis history.

Djokovic’s compatriots from Serbia worship him, but he has been mostly unloved elsewhere, until Sunday, when seemingly everyone wanted to see him deliver. Djokovic has spent more time ranked as the world No. 1 than Nadal or Federer, and is the only one who has a winning record against those two chief rivals. Yet nothing would declare him as the greatest of all like winning the four Grand Slam tournaments in a single year.

Federer and Nadal have never come close, and most likely never will. This year, Djokovic beat Nadal in his kingdom in Paris, where he has won 13 French Open titles. Then Djokovic captured Wimbledon for a sixth time in July, on the grass that Federer has long treated like his front lawn.

He could not win the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo this summer for the fourth jewel of the so-called Golden Slam, something only Steffi Graf has accomplished.

Djokovic soaked up the adoration of his fellow athletes in the Olympic Village, but lost to to Zverev in the semifinals and then to Pablo Carreño Busta in the bronze medal match. The heat and weight of the journey were beginning to take their toll.

Djokovic took nearly a month off from competition, then came to New York to finish his mission, to make things right. A year ago he swatted a ball in anger after losing the first set of his fourth-round U.S. Open match, without any regard for where the ball was headed. It rocketed toward the throat of a line judge, requiring an automatic disqualification.

Djokovic’s first six matches at the 2021 U.S. Open followed a mostly familiar pattern — some early shakiness, including losses in first sets of four consecutive matches, before Djokovic the assassin emerged to take care of business.

It took five sets against Zverev in the semifinal. When that was over, and there was just one match to go, Djokovic embraced the size of the moment at hand — with his heart and his soul and everything else he had. Surely, that would be enough.

Tennis, though, can be so hard sometimes, even for the world’s greatest player, who had made it look so easy for so long.

He refused to go quietly, standing firm late in the third set and saving match point as Medvedev succumbed to the pressure of closing out his first Grand Slam title. He produced two double faults and an ugly backhand into the net, and Djokovic rode the deafening cheers of the crowd to battle back to within a game.

It had taken so long for the fans to get behind him, an entire career really, but now they were there, and as Djokovic sat in his chair, he smiled at the throngs, teared up momentarily and pumped his fist, all the while knowing how deep the hole he had dug for himself really was.

Maybe one day that moment will serve as decent consolation for not winning the Grand Slam. He would later say that those rousing cheers meant as much as a 21st Grand Slam title. There are worse things.

Back on the court, Medvedev had his nearly insurmountable lead, and he made sure not to waste his second chance to serve out the championship. He blasted one last serve that Djokovic could not get back over the net, ending the most difficult of quests in a way that few could have imagined.

There would be no Grand Slam, but there was love, and Djokovic, who is at once a sentimentalist, a warrior and a deep thinker with an impetuous streak that has often gotten him into trouble, knew that was not nothing.

“My heart is filled with joy, and I am the happiest man alive because you guys made me feel that way on the court,” he said just before raising a plate instead of a trophy. “I never felt like this.”

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Medvedev, an avid video game player, also confirmed at the end of his acceptance speech that his celebration had been “L2 + Left,” a FIFA goal celebration where the player collapses to the ground like a brick. Medvedev assured the crowd that only “legends” would understand what he meant.

Djokovic has to give the crowd a lot of credit there — they clearly want him back in this and cheered to the point of disrupting Medvedev’s serve on championship point. Could this be the beginning of a wild swing?

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We’re getting to the territory where this crowd really wants any highlight by Djokovic (and he's had plenty) to turn into some kind of sustained run. He went up 0-15 after an aggressive return that he followed into the net, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation as if he had just won a set.

Medvedev seizes a two-set lead.

The pro-Djokovic contingent inside Ashe has grown more vocally desperate as their player falters in his bid for the Grand Slam, cheering Medvedev’s missed first serves and double faults.

Djokovic is by no means out of this match, of course. He came back from two sets down twice before during this Grand Slam bid, both times at the French Open. In the fourth round of that tournament he came back to beat Lorenzo Musetti, and in the final he came back to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas.

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The sequence with the let was bizarre. It sounded like an ad began to play accidentally over the loudspeakers and when the point was called off, Djokovic threw his hands up in frustration (not that it had developed much anyway). Still, tough break during a key point — these little things that have happened so far seem like small incremental annoyances that are combining to lift the overall tension. As if there’s not enough at stake as is.

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Medvedev takes the first set, 6-4.

Djokovic has plenty of room to come back in the best-of-five format, and he’s done it many times here: he has lost the first set in his last five matches in this tournament. Each of the previous four times, he came back to win the second set and the match.

Medvedev has only lost one set at the Open this year, in the quarterfinals against qualifier Botic Van de Zandschulp.

Medvedev was able to play the first set on his terms, hitting more winners (13 to 10) and fewer unforced errors (7 to 10) than Djokovic. But Djokovic at least seems in command of his own after two shaky opening games, and there has been very little separating the two for the past 30 minutes.

Medvedev seems eager for a Down Under do-over.

After a competitive first set, Medvedev proved hapless in a 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 loss, which gave Djokovic his ninth Australian Open title and the first leg of a possible Grand Slam.

After winning his U.S. Open semifinal on Friday, Medvedev said he had been caught off guard in the Australian Open match when Djokovic used unexpected tactics.

“He was playing different than the matches he did before with me, and I was kind of not ready for it,” said Medvedev, who until Sunday had not faced Djokovic since that match. “So now, I am.”

Medvedev said he had been disappointed by his effort with the Australian Open title on the line, and suggested his flatness might have been influenced by the pandemic restrictions at the tournament, which limited crowd size.

“I always give my best, but I feel like I didn’t leave my heart on the court in Melbourne,” he said. “Even if, of course, I wanted to, there was something not turning up in this match.

“That’s what I’m going to try to do on Arthur Ashe with, hopefully, 100 percent of the fans,” he added. “No matter the score, I’m just going to turn up the heat and try to do my best, even more than what I did in Melbourne.”

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Two Paralympic champions finish off Golden Slams.

De Groot defeated Yui Kamiji of Japan, 6-3, 6-2, in Louis Armstrong Stadium to complete the Slam, which has been possible in wheelchair tennis only since 2016, when Wimbledon introduced a singles competition.

De Groot, 24, thanked the U.S. Open for showcasing her final in one of its biggest stadiums.

“That’s the kind of attitude that we need as wheelchair tennis players: to play on the big stage, play our singles match on Armstrong, that’s just such a professional move,” de Groot said. “Those kind of things are needed for us as players to keep improving as well.”

“I think it motivates us,” she added. “We will work harder when people work harder for us.”

De Groot was followed into Armstrong by Dylan Alcott of Australia, who completed his own Golden Slam in quad singles, beating Niels Vink of the Netherlands, 7-5, 6-2.

Vink, 18, is one of the brightest young talents in wheelchair tennis, and he expressed contentment with his result, calling Alcott’s Golden Slam “insane.”

“Losing to the big boy, I’m happy with my second place,” Vink said.

Like De Groot, Alcott thanked organizers for putting the wheelchair finals on a major court.

“Hopefully changing the lives of millions of people with disabilities around the world, that they can see themselves on the big stage doing what they love, so thank you very much,” Alcott said.

After thanking a list of practically everyone he had ever met, Alcott’s voice began to crack with emotion.

“I just can’t believe I just won the Golden Slam,” he said, resting his head on the microphone as he collected himself. “I used to hate myself so much. I hated my disability, and I didn’t even want to be here anymore. And I found tennis, and it changed and saved my life. And now I’ve become the only male ever, in any form of tennis, to win the Golden Slam, which is pretty cool. I just want to thank everybody here in New York for coming out and supporting us.”

Alcott, 30, then hinted at retirement from the sport.

“I’m going to be upfront: I don’t know if I’ll be back here,” Alcott told the crowd. “So I really appreciate everything, I love you so much, and thanks for making a young, fat, disabled kid with a really bad haircut, thanks for making his dreams come true. Because I can’t believe that I just did it.”

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The winner will get a $2.5 million check, the loser $1.25 million.

Djokovic, 34, who has already earned a record $151.9 million in prize money in his career, also stands to gain more than $2.5 million in performance bonuses from his various sponsors if he completes the first calendar-year Grand Slam since 1969.

Medvedev, 25, who has already banked a comfortable $17.3 million in prize money in his career, would also expect bigger pay days from sponsors if he becomes a rare player from his generation to break through for a major men’s title.

In 1973, the U.S. Open became the first major tournament to pay men and women equal prize money; it took 34 years for Wimbledon to catch up and begin offering equal prize money in 2007.

The prize money at the Open made a bigger difference in Saturday’s final between the relative newcomers Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, both of whom had under $1 million in career earnings before their totals were more than doubled by their Open windfalls.

But for both of the women — particularly for Raducanu, who can tap into huge marketplaces in both Britain and China with her fluent command of Mandarin — the money made off court is likely to dwarf the amounts on their checks from the Open.

Two men who took very different paths to the final.

Djokovic can justify some of his travails: He had a far tougher road in terms of opponents. He defeated the sixth-seeded Matteo Berrettini in the quarterfinals and the fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev in the semifinals.

Medvedev, 25, did not face a top-10 opponent before his meeting with Djokovic, 34. Medvedev, who embraced a villain role and sustained a quadriceps tear during his first final here in 2019, said he had a less eventful trip to the final this time.

“This year I didn’t have the stories, and that’s a good thing,” Medvedev said. “I have the experience of two finals of Slams that can help me — doesn’t mean it will — but can help me.”

He added, “The only thing I can say is all what I have left, I’m going to throw it out on Sunday.”

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Samantha Stosur gets another U.S. Open title, and a nod from Coco Gauff.

Stosur, who stunned Serena Williams to become the 2011 U.S. Open singles champion, won her first women’s doubles title at the U.S. Open in 2005, when Gauff was only a year old.

Gauff, who fought back tears during the trophy ceremony, was pulled in for a consoling embrace by McNally during the pair’s remarks at the trophy ceremony.

Gauff’s mood brightened when she looked to Stosur and congratulated her on her victory.

“Sam, you were actually my first ever autograph from a professional tennis player,” Gauff said, laughing. “So playing a final against you was really cool.”

Desirae Krawczyk of the U.S. wins in mixed doubles, her third major title this year.

The pair defeated Giuliana Olmos of Mexico and Marcelo Arevalo of Spain, 7-5, 6-2.

Krawczyk won this year’s French Open with Salisbury and Wimbledon with Neal Skupski. She is the seventh player, male or female, to win three major mixed doubles titles in the Open era, and the first since Martina Hingis and Leander Paes in 2015. The two other women to have done it were Martina Navratilova (1985) and Margaret Court (1969).

“Honestly, just to think about that, it’s just crazy to me,” said Krawczyk, who was born in Palm Desert, Calif., and played at Arizona State before turning professional. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet. No, I’m just happy to be able to play in front of a lot of friends and family here and to play with Joe and have our whole team with us.”

Salisbury also won men’s doubles, with Rajeev Ram of the United States, and became the first man to win both events at the U.S. Open in the same year since Bob Bryan in 2010.

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Which player will the crowd get behind?

Djokovic, who is beloved in the Balkans and is also one of the most popular tennis players in China, has struggled to win over fans in countries where the major tennis tournaments are held.

Despite his nine titles in Australia, for example, he remains an object of national derision, as reflected in a game show earlier this year.

The crowd reception in Arthur Ashe Stadium has been mixed for Djokovic during this tournament, far inferior to the full-throated support that Serena Williams received during her Grand Slam bid in 2015.

“Obviously you always wish to have the crowd behind you, but it’s not always possible,” Djokovic said last week.

Djokovic said he thought the crowd was booing him during the first round here this year; spectators were actually enthusiastically chanting the surname of his opponent, Holger Rune.

“It was not an ideal atmosphere for me to tell you that,” Djokovic said. “But I’ve been in these particular atmospheres before, so I knew how to handle it.”