Djokovic draws Grand Slam blank

NEW YORK (AP):

NOVAK DJOKOVIC tried to put on a happy face, if only briefly, after his startling third-round defeat at the US Open. He raised his arms, put two thumbs up and grinned a bit before making his way towards the Arthur Ashe Stadium locker room.

That 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 loss to Alexei Popyrin, which ended shortly before midnight as Friday became Saturday, closed the Grand Slam season for Djokovic, marking the first year since 2017 that he didn’t win at least one major championship.

What does Novak Djokovic’s latest Grand Slam loss mean?

For a guy with 24 such titles, more than any other man in tennis history, maybe that’s not such a big deal.

Then again, for someone who makes plain that his ambitions lie with accumulating as many of those trophies as possible – and for someone who is 37, don’t forget – maybe it is.

“It’s hard to see the big perspective right now. You’re just angry and upset that you lost and the way you played, and that’s it,” said Djokovic, the defending champion, who never has exited the US Open earlier than the third round and last went out this early in 2006.

“But tomorrow is a new day,” he continued, “and I will obviously think about what to do next.”

Does this mark the end of the Big Three era?

Looking at the larger picture, there is this statistic of significance: 2024 will go in the books as the first season since 2002 without a Slam title for any member of the so-called Big Three of men’s tennis – Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Federer, who is now retired, won his first major at Wimbledon in 2003, beginning a remarkable run of magnificence for the trio. Their combined total is 66 Slams.

No man had collected more than Pete Sampras’ 14 at the sport’s four most important events until Federer ended up with 20. Nadal then raised the bar to 22. And then Djokovic surpassed him.

“They brought it to a whole different level,” Casper Ruud said when Federer retired in 2022, “and showed that anything is possible.”

But with Federer, 43, out of the game, and Nadal, 38, on uncertain ground given a recent series of injuries, including hip surgery a little more than a year ago, now the real question becomes where things stand for Djokovic.

He lost in the semifinals of the Australian Open, withdrew before the quarterfinals of the French Open because he needed an operation on his right knee and was beaten by Carlos Alcaraz in the final at Wimbledon. What mattered most this year to Djokovic, though, was winning his first Olympic gold medal for Serbia – and he did just that, defeating Alcaraz in the final in Paris.