20:34
Preamble
Thanks for joining us for the big showdown today as second-ranked Daniil Medvedev challenges top-ranked Novak Djokovic. After losing to Djokovic the first three times they played, Medvedev has won three of the last five meetings — 2019 ATP Masters 1000 Monte Carlo, 2019 ATP Masters 1000 Cincinnati, 2020 ATP Finals. Djokovic won in straight sets in the Australian Open earlier this year.
Little bit of a difference here. Medvedev has never won a major. Djokovic, as you might have heard, is aiming for the first calendar-year grand slam since 1969 and sole possession of the record for most majors in men’s singles — 21, which would break a tie with contemporaries Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, both of whom haven’t retired but stalled.
20:15
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Tumaini Carayol on Novak Djokovic’s quest for the calendar slam:
After a deeply satisfied Novak Djokovic had put his racket away following another job well done on Friday night, in the post-match interview of his five-set win over Alexander Zverev the interviewer started a question by listing all of the potential achievements on the line in his final match. As soon as Djokovic understood where the question was going, he cut the question off: “I’m going for a fourth US Open, that’s all I’m thinking about,” he said, smiling.
Further prompts about Djokovic’s grand slam attempt followed: “It’s there, it’s there,” said Djokovic. “I know that people would like to hear me talk about it, but there is not much to talk about. There’s only one match left. All in, all in. Let’s do it. I’m going to put my heart and my soul and my head into that one. I’m going to treat my next match like it is the last match of my career.”
This was not the first time this happened. Djokovic was also understandably not too interested in speaking about the subject in detail after his quarter-final and he later explained that being constantly prompted about the subject leads him to think too much about it, which can “burden” him mentally. He has already said plenty.
Few champions have mastered the knack of speaking openly about their goals and then going out and achieving them, and so this underlines how uniquely difficult the grand slam is to achieve. The sporting challenge of winning all 28 matches in a year is unfathomably difficult alone, but keeping your head throughout as people constantly remind you of the magnitude of the achievement at times seems unbearable.
Read the full story below: