Novak Djokovic is withdrawing from next week’s Paris Masters, he announced on social media on Tuesday, just days after he stopped playing in an exhibition event because of a leg injury.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion has competed infrequently this season, appearing in only eight ATP Tour events outside of the four majors.
Djokovic, who is 38, reached the semifinals at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open this season. From late May to late September, the only tournaments he entered were those last three Slams.
At his most recent official tournament, the Shanghai Masters, Djokovic was slowed by a sore hip during a semifinal exit.
He was one of the half-dozen men invited to the Six Kings Slam in Saudi Arabia last week. After an opening bye, Djokovic lost to Jannik Sinner, then faced Taylor Fritz to determine the third-place finisher but stopped playing after one set.
The ATP Finals, which Djokovic qualified for but skipped in 2024, are Nov 9-16 in Turin, Italy. (JapanToday)
Defending champion Jannik Sinner retired on Sunday from the Shanghai Masters after suffering from cramps in his third-round match against the Netherlands’ Tallon Griekspoor, easing the way for Novak Djokovic’s shot at a record-extending fifth title.
The 38-year-old Serb battled through to the last 16 with a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 win over qualifier Yannick Hanfmann, despite admitting that he had been “hanging by a rope” early in the match.
It was a sorry end for Sinner, who had been hoping this week to add to his China Open victory.
The world number two began to experience issues in the fourth game of the third set, trying doggedly to persevere before abandoning the match at 6-7 (3/7), 7-5, 3-2.
Sinner ended the fourth game crouched over in pain and limping around the court.
He tried to play through it but did not improve, hitting the ball into the net multiple times to provide an easy break for his opponent.
He could barely walk at the end of the fifth game and had to be helped to his chair before accepting reality and calling it quits.
“(It was) a very unfortunate ending to what I thought was a high-quality match,” Griekspoor said. “Not the way you want to win — brutal conditions here… I wish him a speedy recovery.”
After an evenly matched first set, four-time Grand Slam winner Sinner had shown his teeth in the tiebreak, hitting two aces to take an early lead.
In the second set the tension picked up, with Griekspoor surviving three break points in the second game.
But it was the Dutchman who broke in the 11th game with a backhand, pushing the match into post-midnight territory.
Earlier, 24-time Grand Slam winner Djokovic was given a mighty scare by the 150th-ranked Hanfmann.
The Serb fired two aces to start, delighting the crowd, but soon ran into trouble as Hanfmann found his range.
The German broke in the third game and held serve after that to clinch the first set.
“I was just outplayed by a better player for a set and a half –- I was hanging by a rope to stay in the match,” Djokovic said.
Neither player was able to take control of a grueling second set, until a series of unforced errors from Hanfmann in the 12th game gave Djokovic the opening he needed.
Sweating in 28C humidity at 9 p.m., the 24-time Grand Slam champion then broke in the fourth game of the third set as his 33-year-old opponent’s precision dropped.
Cheered on by a stadium full of adoring fans, Djokovic held his resolve to take the third set after Hanfmann hit the ball out.
“I had to dig in really, really deep to come out from this match as a winner, and I think the energy and support of the crowd really got me out,” Djokovic said.
American Taylor Fritz was another top-10 casualty of the day, after he fell to 37th-ranked Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard 6-4, 7-5.
On a hot afternoon, the world number four seemed lethargic and struggled to get into his stride, unnerved after Mpetshi Perricard nearly broke twice in the fifth game.
That preempted a streak of brilliance that saw the neon orange-clad Frenchman fire three aces to hold the sixth, then break in the seventh.
A closely fought second set came to a head in the 11th game when a double fault by Fritz handed Mpetshi Perricard the advantage, which he swiftly converted with a backhand.
Finishing the match off with two aces, the big-serving 22-year-old said he could be proud of himself.
“It was tough to be honest, tough conditions, very humid,” he said.
“The game at 5-5 (in the second set), it was terrible. I thought I was dying on the court,” he chuckled.
Mpetshi Perricard will next face 11th-ranked Dane Holger Rune, who beat France’s Ugo Humbert, 6-4, 6-4. (JapanToday)
Carlos Alcaraz hit a behind-the-back shot at the U.S. Open to win a point in a 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-4 victory over Arthur Rinderknech on Sunday that made the Spaniard the youngest man in the Open era to reach 13 Grand Slam quarterfinals.
“Sometimes, I practice it. I’m not going to lie,” the No. 2-seeded Alcaraz said about the bit of wizardry he delivered in the first set. “But I mean, I don’t practice it, like, too many times. Just in practice, if the opportunity is there, I will try. In the match, it’s kind of the same. If I have the opportunity, why not?”
At 22 years and 3 months old, Alcaraz is about 6 months younger than Boris Becker was when he got to major quarterfinal No. 13.
Alcaraz’s opponent on Tuesday will be No. 20 Jiri Lehecka, a 23-year-old from the Czech Republic. Lehecka advanced to his second Slam quarterfinal with a 7-6 (4), 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 win over Adrian Mannarino.
Early on against Rinderknech, a Frenchman who played college tennis at Texas A&M, Alcaraz closed a love hold that made the score 2-all in spectacular fashion. Moving to his right at midcourt, Alcaraz found himself in what appeared to be a bad spot when Rinderknech wrong-footed him.
But Alcaraz wrapped his racket around his body and flicked a shot up the line ( see it here ).
Perhaps startled that the point wasn’t over, Rinderknech hit a volley that landed in the net. A big smile crossed Alcaraz’s face as he looked over at his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, in the stands. Alcaraz then placed his right index finger behind his ear, as if acknowledging the spectators’ cheers.
“The people like it; I like playing tennis like this,” Alcaraz said. “My style of tennis fits pretty well to the energy here.”
Alcaraz wound up taking that set in a tiebreaker. Then, midway through the second, Alcaraz produced another highlight-worthy effort with a no-look passing winner, racing forward to get to a short ball and glancing down the line as though he was going to hit to Rinderknech’s backhand, but instead steering a forehand cross-court.
By the last game, even Rinderknech was smiling at other next-level strokes by Alcaraz, who has won 54 of 55 service games through four matches this year at Flushing Meadows. He claimed the title here in 2022 for the first of his five Grand Slam trophies.
Alcaraz is into his fourth major quarterfinal of 2025, the first time in his career he’s gone 4 for 4 in that category in a season. He lost to Novak Djokovic at that stage at the Australian Open in January, won the French Open in June and lost to No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the final at Wimbledon in July.
In women’s action, Taylor Townsend couldn’t covert eight match points in a second set that ended with a 25-minute tiebreaker and was eliminated with a 1-6, 7-6 (13), 6-3 loss to Barbora Krejcikova.
With fans chanting “Let’s go Taylor! Let’s go Taylor!” for a player who became a fan favorite during the tournament after her confrontation with Jelena Ostapenko following her second-round victory, Townsend was repeatedly a point away from what would have been her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
No. 4 seed Jessica Pegula irolled into the last eight by routing fellow American Ann Li 6-1, 6-2 in just 54 minutes and will face Krejcikova. (JapanToday)
Novak Djokovic beat Britain’s Cameron Norrie in four sets on Friday to became the oldest man to reach the U.S. Open last 16 since Jimmy Connors in 1991.
The 38-year-old Djokovic earned a record 192nd Grand Slam match win on hard courts as he defeated Norrie 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 6-2, 6-3, staying in the hunt for an unprecedented 25th major title.
“Coming into any match you really want to win in straight sets without any drama but obviously that’s not possible,” said Djokovic. “It’s good that I get tested. I obviously haven’t had any matches since Wimbledon. I’m still trying to find my rhythm and my groove on the court.”
Djokovic has now defeated Norrie in all seven of their meetings and is through to the fourth round in New York for the 16th time in his career.
On Sunday he will play German veteran Jan-Lennard Struff, who has already knocked out two seeds in Holger Rune and Frances Tiafoe.
A lone break of Norrie’s serve in the seventh game was enough for Djokovic to pocket the opening set, but not before he summoned the physio to work on his lower back.
The Serbian star headed off court for a medical timeout and returned to serve out the first set.
“It’s all right, you have some ups and downs. You don’t want to reveal too much to the rivals listening,” said a grinning Djokovic, refusing to elaborate on the nature of his back issue.
He had the chance to make further inroads in the second set but Norrie saved three break points and then pinched the tie-break from his smoldering rival who double-faulted on set point.
Norrie took that momentum into the third set with an early break, drawing an emphatic response from Djokovic as he responded by winning four straight games.
Djokovic soon made the set his and another break to start the fourth set gave him the cushion required to close out a milestone victory.
In women’s action, world number one Aryna Sabalenka advanced to the fourth round after extending her remarkable streak of tie-break victories to defeat Canada’s Leylah Fernandez.
Reigning champion Sabalenka punched her ticket to the last 16 after seeing off Fernandez 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) in one hour 39 minutes on the Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Sabalenka’s decisive second set victory was capped by her 18th consecutive tie-break win.
The victory was also sweet revenge for Sabalenka, who suffered an upset defeat to then teenager Fernandez in the semi-finals of the 2021 U.S. Open.
“I wanted this revenge badly,” Sabalenka said afterwards. “It was a tough lesson for me back then. Since then, we never played again. I just wanted to prove to myself that the lesson was learned and that I developed as a player and I could get this win.”
Sabalenka attributes her dominance of tie-breaks this season to a tougher mental approach.
“I definitely think that mentally I’m pretty strong, and I’m still growing, because I’m learning a lot of lessons, and all of those lessons making me tougher, tougher, and tougher,” she said. (JapanToday)
Top seed Jannik Sinner teed up the French Open final against Carlos Alcaraz that many expected after edging past Novak Djokovic in a tense last-four contest.
Italy’s Sinner won 6-4 7-5 7-6 (7-3) to end Djokovic’s hopes of winning a standalone record 25th Grand Slam title.
Djokovic, 38, looked emotional as he put his racquet bags down on Court Philippe Chatrier and waved farewell to an adoring crowd.
Defending champion Alcaraz moved into his second successive Roland Garros final after eighth seed Lorenzo Musetti retired injured in the fourth set of their semi-final earlier on Friday.
Sinner, playing only his second tournament back after a three-month ban for failing two doping tests, meets the Spanish second seed on Sunday.
The pair were the clear favourites before the clay-court Grand Slam tournament and will now write another chapter in their developing rivalry.
Alcaraz led 4-6 7-6 (7-3) 6-0 2-0 when Italy’s Musetti, aiming to reach his first major final, was forced to end the match early.
“It’s never fair. I want to win but not like this,” said Alcaraz.
Age is clearly catching up with Djokovic – but the nature of this defeat showed just how much he still offers at the top of the game.
The Serb was aiming to become the oldest Grand Slam men’s singles champion by lifting the trophy on Sunday for a fourth time.
Djokovic’s quality and fight enabled him to stay within touching distance of the 23-year-old Sinner, who has taken the reins as the world number one.
Yet it still never truly felt like he would be able to snap his three-match losing streak against the nerveless Italian.
Djokovic tried a variety of tactics – baseline duels, drop-shots, serve and volley – but Sinner was virtually impossible to break down.
The constant pressure forced Djokovic into loose groundstrokes and badly-executed drop-shots in an opening set which swung Sinner’s way when he broke serve in the fifth game.
Djokovic’s level improved in the early part of the second set, with two holds to love followed by scrutiny on Sinner’s serve, but he could not find a way through.
An animated Djokovic roared at the crowd after saving a break point in the fifth game and looked up to the heavens in frustration when another poor return handed over the break in his next service game.
You can never completely count Djokovic out, though. He managed to break back for 5-5 before losing serve again as Sinner sealed a two-set lead at the second opportunity.
Djokovic needed treatment for an issue with his upper left leg before the third set, but Sinner is rarely fazed by any disruptions and soaked up most of what Djokovic threw at him.
That included saving three set points in a tense game at 5-4, where further drama was added by a disbelieving Djokovic arguing over a line call going against him at deuce.
Sinner quickly took control of the tie-break, helped by Djokovic smashing into the net for 3-0, to set up the tantalising meeting with Alcaraz – their first contest in a Grand Slam final. (BBC)
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