1 Response to uo21djokovic_zverev

1. Voo de Mar says:

   August 26, 2025 at 12:52 pm

   Points won by each set: | 23-30, 28-20, 31-29, 29-35, 30-19 |
   Points won directly behind the serve:
   24 % Djokovic – 37 of 150
   33 % Zverev – 41 of 124

   Now, when I’m writing this summary, Zverev is a very strong candidate to be considered as the best player of the Open Era to never win a major, and that US Open ’21 it was potentially his best opportunity to win his lone Slam – he was on a 16-match winning streak with two big titles under his belt (Olympics in Tokyo and Cincinnati), in the process being just once on the verge of defeat (Tsitsipas), and having eliminated Djokovic en route to his Gold medal.
   He was full of confidence and the opening set of the semifinal reflected it; he was striking first serves at full speed, occasionally second serves too, 15 out of 25 points on serve he obtained directly (60% – such a high percentage is typical only for serve-bots), Djokovic [1] was hopeless. Yet at the beginning of the 2nd set, the service machine stopped smoothly working, the Serb broke to lead 2:0 not doing anything particular and afterwards Zverev [4] couldn’t regain his awesome form from the first 40 minutes. It was generally a lopsided 5-setter, the only balanced set occurred in the middle; Zverev began his service game at 4:5 with two casual errors, he saved the first set point hitting a FH winner in a 53-stroke rally, but lost the following point and the crucial set. In the decider Djokovic raced to a comfortable 5:0* lead and forced an error to clinch a 3-hour 34-minute victory. It was Djokovic’s 27 straight match won at Slams that year, he was separated by one victory from winning the calendar Slam, but in the final he paid the price for a very demanding fortnight (3-1 vs Rune, Nishikori, Brooksby & Berrettini; 3-2 vs Zverev) – he had lost six sets while his opponent in the final (Medvedev) just one.

   Serve & volley: Djokovic 3/4, Zverev 1/2

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