Defending champion Novak Djokovic knocked out of US Open by Alexei Popyrin of Australia

NEW YORK — Novak Djokovic did not go easy on himself when assessing the listless way he performed from the start of the U.S. Open, pointing to his sloppy serving as the main reason the defense of his 2023 title surprisingly ended in the third round.

“I have played some of the worst tennis I have ever played, honestly,” Djokovic said, just after midnight as Friday turned to Saturday. “Serving — by far — the worst ever.”

With 14 double-faults, raising his tournament total to 32, Djokovic bowed out with a 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 loss to 28th-seeded Alexei Popyrin of Australia, another shocking result at Flushing Meadows one night after Carlos Alcaraz exited.

“It was just an awful match for me,” the No. 2-seeded Djokovic said. “I wasn’t playing even close to my best. It’s not good to be in that kind of state where you feel OK physically, and of course you’re motivated because it’s a Grand Slam, but you just are not able to find your game. That’s it. The game is falling apart, and I guess you have to accept that tournaments like this happen.”

Not often for him, though.

After all, Djokovic was trying to become the first player in tennis history with 25 Grand Slam singles titles. Instead, after knee surgery in June, he finishes a year without claiming at least one major championship for the first time since 2017. Before that, it hadn’t happened since 2010.

Also of note: 2024 now becomes the first season since 2002 in which none of the Big Three of men’s tennis — Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer — earned a Slam trophy.

The third-round exit equals Djokovic’s worst showing at Flushing Meadows; the only other occasions he was beaten that early at the U.S. Open came in 2005 and 2006. The man who defeated Djokovic 18 years ago, International Tennis Hall of Fame member Lleyton Hewitt, is now Australia’s Davis Cup captain and was sitting in Popyrin’s guest box in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Djokovic, who is 37, has reached the final in Ashe 10 times, leaving with the title in 2011, 2015, 2018 and 2023.

On Friday, though, he was sluggish and emotionally flat, perhaps residual fatigue after collecting his first Olympic gold medal for Serbia by beating Alcaraz in the final at the Paris Games earlier in August.

“Obviously, it had an effect,” Djokovic said. “I spent a lot of energy winning the gold, and I did arrive to New York just not feeling fresh mentally and physically. But because it’s the U.S. Open, I gave it a shot and I tried my best. I mean, I didn’t have any physical issues. I just felt out of gas. And you could see that with the way I played.”

The No. 3-seeded Alcaraz entered the U.S. Open as the tournament favorite having won the French Open and Wimbledon, and acknowledged his energy was lower than he realized after getting eliminated by 74th-ranked Botic van de Zandschulp 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 on Thursday night.

Djokovic then replaced Alcaraz as the money-line pick to take the men’s title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, but that status didn’t last long at all.

For the 25-year-old Popyrin, this represents a real breakthrough: He had been 0-3 against Djokovic and 0-6 in third-round matches at majors.

But the strong-serving Popyrin is playing as well as ever, coming off the biggest title of his career less than three weeks ago at a hard-court tournament in Montreal, where he picked up five wins against opponents ranked in the top 20.

Everything was working against Djokovic.

Popyrin was terrific at the net, going 10 for 10 on serve-and-volley approaches and 25 for 36 overall on points when he pushed forward. Djokovic, in contrast, only won the point on 19 of his 40 trips to the net, in part because Popyrin kept flipping passing shots by him.

Popyrin took big cuts with his powerful forehand, accumulating 22 of his 50 total winners with that shot.

And he broke Djokovic five times, including for a lead of 3-2 in the fourth. That game felt titanic, lasting more than 10 minutes and including four break chances for Popyrin, who converted the last with an inside-out forehand to close a 22-stroke exchange, then rocked back on his heels, clenched both fists and let out a roar. He took Djokovic’s next service game, too, to make it 5-2.

The first time Popyrin served for the match, he faltered, allowing Djokovic to break. The second time, Popyrin finished the deal, holding at love when Djokovic sent a forehand long.

Now Popyrin will try to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal by getting past No. 20 Frances Tiafoe.

“If he serves well, plays well, he can beat anybody,” Djokovic said about Popyrin. “Look, Alcaraz is out. I’m out. Some big upsets. The draw is opening up.”

All-American rematch goes to Tiafoe

Frances Tiafoe loves the spotlight. Loves interacting with a crowd. Loves the electricity of being an American at the U.S. Open, at Arthur Ashe Stadium, in particular. What he loves most of all, of course, is coming out on the right side of a match in that environment, at that arena.

Add in the heightened tension of a fifth set against a friend and countryman he lost to in the quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows a year ago, Ben Shelton, and Tiafoe’s attention-grabbing victory Friday meant a lot to him, even if it was in the afternoon, not at night, even if it was in the third round, not Week 2.

Solving Shelton’s big serve and playing brilliantly at the net, the 20th-seeded Tiafoe won their all-American rematch 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 across 4 hours, 3 minutes to reach the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the fifth consecutive year.

“All my friends and close ones (were) saying, ‘How is he not playing at night? I don’t know how I’m going to get there.’ Da, da, da. Blah, blah, blah. I was like, ’Fact of the matter is, we’re not playing at night. It doesn’t really matter. I just want to win,'” said Tiafoe, a 26-year-old from Maryland whose best Grand Slam run was a 2022 semifinal appearance at the U.S. Open.

“It would have been cool at night,” he said. “Look, it was epic during the day. I think everyone loved it.”

Well, everyone other than the 13th-seeded Shelton, his team and his fans, of course.

“It was just one of those back-and-forth, back-and-forth,” said Shelton, a 21-year-old from Georgia, “and I wasn’t able to capitalize on the chances I had in the end. When he had them today, he really came through in the big moments.”

When it ended, with one last winning volley off Tiafoe’s racket that he hit quite nonchalantly but was anything but — “Dude, it looked casual, but I was tight as hell,” he said he told Shelton afterward — the pals met at the net for a hug and a lengthy chat.

“It’s important to show it sometimes — that you can be happy for a guy when they beat you,” Shelton said.

Their meeting in 2023 was at night, and Shelton went up 2-1 in sets before winning in four. This time, Tiafoe again trailed by 2-1, but he never went away.

“Just don’t lay down. Having pride in myself,” Tiafoe said. “I just want to win or lose matches, knowing the guy beat me (and) I didn’t beat myself. No free lunches.”

Shelton and Tiafoe are both part of a group of five Americans in the top 20 of the ATP rankings, making some think the country’s long wait for a men’s champion at a major could end someday soon. Andy Roddick’s 2003 U.S. Open trophy was the most recent Slam title for an man from the United States.

The highest-ranked U.S. man at the moment, No. 12 Taylor Fritz, moved on with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win against Francisco Comesana and now will take on three-time Slam finalist Casper Ruud, who beat Juncheng Shang in five sets after dropping the first two. Yet another American, Brandon Nakashima, who is currently No. 50, advanced by eliminating Wimbledon semifinalist Lorenzo Musetti 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Shelton, a left-hander, hadn’t lost serve even once in two wins this week before Friday and did manage to produce 23 aces, reaching 143 mph. But Tiafoe accumulated a whopping 21 break points — the most any opponent ever has against Shelton — and converted five. The last made it 3-1 in the fifth set.

“Since I’ve been on tour,” Shelton said, “today was probably the best that anyone has returned my serve.”

Tiafoe’s been focusing on improving that aspect of his game since pairing up with David Witt, who coached Venus Williams for years.

The other key Friday? Tiafoe kept charging forward, and he kept putting away volleys. He won 35 of 48 points when he made it to the net. As usual, Tiafoe played to the fans, breaking out his “Salt Bae” celebration after one point.

Tiafoe hasn’t always excelled at five-setters: He was just 6-13 in matches that went the distance before Friday. Shelton was 6-2. But none of that mattered on this occasion.

“Once he got that lead in the fifth,” Shelton said, “he really started to fly.”

Gauff comes back to beat Svitolina, next up is Navarro

Coco Gauff was not aware that she’d lost five consecutive matches against opponents ranked in the top 50. She was not sure exactly how many points in a row she’d dropped — 11, it turns out — to give away the first set against Elina Svitolina in the U.S. Open’s third round on Friday.

Here, then, is what was entirely clear to Gauff at that moment: “I needed a reset.” So before the second set, the 20-year-old from Florida went to the bathroom, changed part of her outfit and splashed water on her face. Then Gauff went back on court and extended the defense of her first Grand Slam title by turning things around to beat the 27th-seeded Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

“Felt like a new person coming out,” the third-seeded Gauff said. “I just didn’t want to leave the court with any regrets.”

After making mistake after mistake early on at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gauff managed to reel off nine of 11 games in one stretch and won again despite losing the opening set, something she did three times en route to claiming the 2023 trophy at Flushing Meadows, including in the final against Aryna Sabalenka.

“It was in my mind today. It gave me a lot of confidence,” Gauff said, “just because it felt like déjà vu a little bit.”

On Sunday, Gauff will face No. 13 Emma Navarro, one of her teammates at the Paris Olympics, for a berth in the quarterfinals. Navarro eliminated Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon.

“I did a good job of neutralizing her serve and just playing really aggressive from the baseline and pushing back against her groundstrokes,” Navarro, who is from South Carolina and won an NCAA title for Virginia, said about that matchup last month. “And then always getting one more ball back in the court.”

Navarro advanced Friday with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory over No. 19 Marta Kostyuk. Other women’s fourth-round matchups set up in the afternoon were No. 7 Zheng Qinwen vs. No. 24 Donna Vekic, and No. 26 Paula Badosa vs. Wang Yafan. No. 2 Sabalenka was set to play No. 29 Ekaterina Alexandrova at night, with the winner to face No. 33 Elise Mertens, who outlasted No. 14 Madison Keys in three sets.

Zheng-Vekic is a rematch of the gold medal match at the Summer Games four weeks ago; Zheng won that one.

Vekic beat Gauff in the third round at the Olympics, part of Gauff’s recent drought against top-50 foes. That also was part of a recent slump that saw Gauff win just five of her previous nine matches.

Such a contrast to a year ago, when Gauff won 18 of 19, and 12 in a row, along the way to two tuneup titles on hard courts and then the championship at the U.S. Open that made her the first U.S. teenager to triumph at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams in 1999.

By the conclusion of one set against Svitolina, it seemed as if another loss might be in the offing. Gauff’s totals were 16 unforced errors — nine on backhands — and just seven winners. She put only 45% of her first serves in. She went 0 for 3 on break points. She allowed Svitolina to claim 19 of the 28 points that lasted more than four strokes.

All of those numbers got better across the last two sets as Gauff tried to be more aggressive with her forehands and be more careful with her backhands. And something else changed, at the behest of her coaches: Gauff got the partisan crowd more involved.

Svitolina said afterward she was bothered by an ankle injury picked up last week

“I feel like she started to go (for) more a little bit. But to be fair, I didn’t play the way that I wanted to play. … Then she started to be more alive,” said Svitolina, a three-time Slam semifinalist. “And, of course, the crowd was behind her.”

Everything began to change for Gauff on Friday after 1 hour, 10 minutes, when she broke to lead 4-2 in the second set, smacking a cross-court forehand winner. She celebrated with a yell of “Come on!” and raised her left hand to wiggle her fingers and ask the spectators to get louder.

Soon that set belonged to Gauff, who closed it with a 94 mph ace, shook a fist and shouted.

In the third, Gauff broke right away, then held to go up 2-0 with the help of one 38-stroke point that she took when Svitolina sent a backhand wide.

Soon it was 5-1 for Gauff, whose only late wobble came when she served for the match at 5-2. She wasted three match points and got broken there. But Gauff broke right back to close things out.

“I’m glad that I had that match,” Gauff said, “because I think it just makes me match-tough and gets me ready, probably, for future challenges.”