Novak Djokovic defeated in-form Alexander Zverev in the China Open quarterfinals by 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 to continue his perfect record in Beijing. With this win, the Serbian qualified for the tournament’s semifinal.
After two hours and 35 minutes, Djokovic improved to 32-0 in Beijing, the best start in men’s singles at a tour-level event in the Open Era. The Serbian was previously tied on that list with his great rival Rafael Nadal, who won his first 31 matches at Roland Garros.
Djokovic admitted he had a terrible start against the German as he lost the opening set.
“I had a terrible start. Two double faults at the beginning. It was quite cold and honestly, I didn’t feel warmed up, but my fault,” Djokovic said. “I gave him an early break and then it was hard to come back in the first set. I had a couple of break points when he was serving for the set at 5-4, but didn’t use them, but I kind of felt already from midway through the first set that I was starting to get a good rhythm, at least one my serve and on serve plus one.”
After this win, Djokovic improved to 10-5 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series against Zverev. The veteran is only the third man in PIF ATP Rankings history (since 1973) to earn a Top-3 win after turning 39 years of age, after Ken Rosewall and Jimmy Connors.
“To be honest, these are the kind of moments that I still play for, compete for,” Djokovic said. “The motivation is big obviously when you are feeling good and competing at par with the best players in the world, in front of 15,000 people of course. These are the kind of moments that define dreams, I think, of every tennis player. It’s been a struggle this year, to be honest, for different reasons, but I’m still there, still grinding, still making the youngsters work for their money. I’m just glad to push it through.”
Djokovic into the China Open final after Daniil Medvedev is defaulted for striking a ball that has hit a fan.
