NEW YORK: Carlos Alcaraz beat 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic in straight sets on Friday to reach his second US Open final, where he could face reigning champion Jannik Sinner.
Alcaraz won 6-4, 7-6 , 6-2 to reel off his 36th victory in his last 37 matches. His only loss in that time came to Sinner in the Wimbledon final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 22-year-old Spaniard is seeking his sixth major and second in New York after winning the title in 2022. He will play top-ranked Sinner or Canadian 25th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great feeling. Once again in the final here in the US Open, it feels amazing. It means lot to me,\u201d said Alcaraz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the best level of the tournament for me, but I just keep a good level from the beginning to the last point. I served really well today, it was important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defeat for Djokovic marked his fourth straight semifinal loss at a Grand Slam and foiled the 38-year-old\u2019s bid to become the oldest major champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcaraz grabbed a break to open the match as Djokovic pushed a forehand long and the Spaniard had a chance to go a double break in front, cranking up the heat on the Serbian\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Djokovic escaped further trouble but the damage was done as Alcaraz secured the set with a couple of clutch serves as both players were still searching for their best level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After sparring with the crowd during his quarter-final win over Taylor Fritz, Djokovic had the majority of those inside Arthur Ashe Stadium urging him on as he landed his first proper blow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A fired-up Djokovic broke Alcaraz and surged into a 3-0 lead to start the second set, but a sublime flicked passing shot that drew applause from his rival offered a way back in for the Spaniard. He pulled level at 3-3 before Djokovic ended a three-game skid. Alcaraz let an opportunity slip when he pegged Djokovic 0-30 down in the ninth game, with a tie-break eventually required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcaraz ran up a 4-1 advantage and held Djokovic off, hitting a booming serve to earn two set points and strengthening his grip on the contest when the Serbian sent a looping backhand return wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Djokovic summoned the trainer between sets and his energy appeared to be waning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two double faults gifted Alcaraz a break for a 3-1 lead in the third set and the writing was on the wall for Djokovic, whose latest bid for a record 25th Grand Slam ended with a whimper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK: Carlos Alcaraz beat 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic in straight sets on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestatemonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}