Novak Djokovic smashed a racket, sending a piece of the frame flying. Later, he plopped himself down right there at the back of the blue court, looking forlorn as can be.
He dropped the opening set against Alexander Zverev, one of the young guys trying to shove aside Djokovic and the rest of the Big Three. Djokovic trailed 3-0 in the third. And 3-0 in the fourth, too, eventually even facing a set point.
Ah, but this is Djokovic we're talking about, the ultimate competitor. And this is Djokovic at the Australian Open, where no man ever has been better. So, naturally, Djokovic pulled himself together and pulled out the victory, reaching his ninth semifinal at Melbourne Park by eliminating No. 5 seed Zverev 6-7 (6), 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (6) Tuesday night.
“I kind of regained my focus after I broke that racket. Things started to shift a little bit for me in a positive direction,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview in Rod Laver Arena about the way he mangled his equipment by hitting it against the court three times after netting a backhand return at 3-1 in the third set.
“It was a relief for me, but I wouldn’t recommend this kind of relief-channeling, if you want to call it,” Djokovic said later. “Of course I'm not proud of that, but you go through a lot of different emotions, you go through an inner battle. Everyone is different. I have my own demons that I have to fight with.”
Djokovic is closing in on a ninth championship in Australia, which would add to his own record for a man. And an 18th Grand Slam title overall, two fewer than rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (who plays in the quarterfinals Wednesday).
Both men wore tape on their midsections Tuesday to help with abdominal issues; Djokovic was hurt during his third-round win against Taylor Fritz and said he hasn't been practicing as normal on his off-days.
Several leading men have been injured in Australia, and Djokovic thinks a big reason for that is the unusual circumstances of players' needing to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival in the country because of the strict COVID-19 pandemic regulations Down Under.
“What we are seeing is not normal. It's not what we are used to. Top players are the fittest,” the No. 1-ranked Djokovic said after his 23-ace performance against Zverev.
In the semifinals, Djokovic will face the surprise of the tournament: Aslan Karatsev, a 27-year-old from Russia who is ranked 114th and needed to go through qualifying rounds just to get into the main draw of a major for the first time.
“To be honest,” Djokovic said, “I haven’t seen him play at all before the Australian Open.”
No one ever had been to the final four in his Slam debut, until Karatsev's 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 elimination Tuesday of No. 18 Grigor Dimitrov, who was hurt by back spasms that made tying his shoes a chore.
Dimitrov remained on court through the finish, but on Monday, injuries caused No. 9 Matteo Berrettini to withdraw before his match and No. 22 Casper Ruud to stop after the second set of his.
Zverev, the 2020 U.S. Open runner-up and a semifinalist in Melbourne a year ago, once more had trouble against elite competition on the biggest stages. He fell to 0-8 against Top 10 opponents at Grand Slam tournaments; he is 25-29 facing such foes in tour-level matches otherwise.
Serena Williams was not pleased with the way her play suddenly was slipping in the Australian Open quarterfinals.
After one mistake against No. 2 seed Simona Halep — who won the last time they played each other — Williams pointed at her racket strings and made a sour face, as if to indicate it wasn’t her fault. After another, Williams looked up at her guest box with palms up and asked, “What is happening?”
That dismay didn't last long. Williams recalibrated her shots with the help of terrific footwork, overcame 33 unforced errors and claimed the last five games, beating Halep 6-3, 6-3 Tuesday to return to the final four at Melbourne Park for the first time since she won the tournament in 2017. That was her most recent Grand Slam title.
“I just realized I was making a lot of unforced errors in those games that I lost. And I knew that I had an opportunity to play better,” said Williams, now two wins away from claiming her record-tying 24th major singles championship. “So I was just like, ‘Just stay in there. You just can keep going.’ And that’s what I just did.”
She set up a showdown against No. 3 Naomi Osaka, a three-time Slam champ who will carry a 19-match winning streak into Thursday’s semifinals.
“She’s Serena,” Osaka said. “I feel really intimidated when I see her on the other side of the court.”
This will be their fourth matchup; the most memorable, of course, was Osaka's victory in the 2018 U.S. Open final.
On that night, Williams got into an argument with the chair umpire after her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, was caught trying to relay a signal — that’s not allowed in Grand Slam play — and wound up being docked a game. Osaka’s win closed with thousands of fans filling Arthur Ashe Stadium with boos, and both of the athletes in tears during the trophy ceremony.
“We both have had closure,” Williams said, “and we have reached out to each other.”
There were no spectators Tuesday in Rod Laver Arena, because they’ve been banned from the tournament during a five-day government lockdown in response to a local rise in COVID-19 cases (the applause and other crowd noise TV viewers hear is added to the broadcast feed and isn’t actually happening in the stadium).
Displaying the improved movement that Mouratoglou says has been a point of emphasis and Williams says is a result of a problematic left Achilles tendon finally healing, the 39-year-old American covered the court impeccably. She stretched points with defense or swung at balls while they were still on the rise, trying to take time away from Halep.
“I know that, throughout my career, speed has been one thing that’s been super good in my game,” Williams said.
Plenty was super good in the first set. Serves at up to 124 mph (200 kph). Returns that included a cross-court forehand winner on Halep’s very first service point, a stinging shot about which Williams said with a chuckle: “I just saw it, and it looked like a donut, and I went for it.”
Then the miscues started mounting — a double-fault here, a wild volley there — and Williams trailed 2-0, then 3-1 in the second set.
But she put a stop to that slide.
A key moment came at 3-all, when Williams earned her sixth break chance of the game by taking a 21-stroke exchange that ended with a wide forehand from Halep. Williams converted that break on a 13-shot point in which she ran wide of the doubles alley for a forehand that extended things until Halep dumped a forehand into the net.
“My feeling after this match is that I was not that far,” two-time major champ Halep said, “but also: She was stronger in the important moments.”
Williams is 0-4 in Grand Slam finals since her last championship. One of those defeats came against Osaka at Flushing Meadows. Another came at Wimbledon in 2019 against Halep, who made an unheard-of total of three unforced errors in a performance she described as “the best day, actually, of my life.”
If Williams is going to get No. 24 on Saturday, she could end up needing to have beaten each of the top three players in the rankings: Halep, Osaka and, perhaps in the final, No. 1 Ash Barty, whose quarterfinal against No. 25 Karolina Muchova is Wednesday.
The other remaining quarterfinal is between two Americans, No. 22 Jennifer Brady and unseeded Jessica Pegula.