Novak Djokovic saw off a stern test as he took down Taylor Fritz 7-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the end after by his own admission being suffocated off the court at times in the early exchanges of his Quarter-Final at the 2024
Australian Open. But number 11 lives on and there was also another seemingly first on the court post match.
Despite the Night Session massively overrunning, Djokovic was interviewed by
Nick Kyrgios who seemingly is the only active player to do interviews on court after such a match with Andrea Petkovic who has been amongst those doing them retired recently and the bromance continued.
"Looking good in that booth but looking better here, hopefully with a racquet also soon. We miss Nick. Come on guys, show him some love. I suffered a lot the first couple of sets, also due to his high quality tennis. He was serving well, he was staying close to the line. He was suffocating me from the back of the court. Most of my rallies were on my backfoot, it was really difficult to find the right timing," said Djokovic.
"It was extremely hot while the sun was still out there. Physically very draining, emotionally as well. Huge round of applause for Fritz for a great performance today and also this tournament. He's played amazing tennis."
Djokovic sat on 0/15 break points at one point and just couldn't attack the Fritz serve and he was frustrated by his counter punch against the American. "It felt like playing you (Kyrgios) with your serve, Taylor has got one of the best serves in the world. When he's feeling it, I saw him play Tsitsipas the other day and he was serving really well so I knew the kind of threat he poses when he serves such high quality. Conversion of break points was really poor, I saw it was like 4/21 today. But I think at the end of the day, I managed to break him when it mattered in the third and fourth. I think I upped my game mid way through the third set. I served extremely well, I think I had more aces than he did which was a surprise stat but it helped in this kind of match-up."
Next up though is the matter of Jannik Sinner or Andrey Rublev and Djokovic's simple message to Kyrgios despite him saying he was going to bed was let's sit back and enjoy the show. "Both Sinner and Rublev are in great form. I watched Rublev the other night against De Minaur, some of the quickest exchanges I've seen in Rod Laver Arena in years. They both played incredible tennis. Sinner is probably playing the tennis of his life. I can expect him to play at the highest level, let's get some popcorn you and I, let's chill on the sofa and enjoy the match."