Novak Djokovic battled illness and fought adversity in the form of Daniil Medvedev to become the only player to remain unbeaten in the 2022 ATP Finals.
The 36-year-old Novak Djokovic had already punched his ticket to the semis after winning his first two encounters against Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev. Medvedev, on the other hand, lost his first two matches and got eliminated from the season-end competition. So when the 2021 US Open finalists met in the last group-stage encounter of the ATP Finals, there wasn’t much to play for except 200 ranking points and close to 400k dollars. However, judging by the effort the two men put in, you wouldn’t believe that it was a dead rubber.
Djokovic has been in scintillating form as of late and he carried it into the match against Medvedev. The former managed to take the first set without much fuss and it seemed only a matter of time before he would walk out as the winner. The Russian superstar had other ideas though. He fought fire with fire in the second set and managed to win it by the barest of margins.
We went into the decisive third set as both players hit the ground running. Medvedev broke Djokovic’s serve for the first time in the ninth game to take a 5-4 lead. That epic game lasted 16 minutes as the match rolled into the third hour. Medvedev’s struggle to close out matches continued as Djokovic broke his serve to level things up at 5-5. From there, Djokovic managed to win the thrilling match 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-2).
Novak Djokovic will face Taylor Fritz in the semis of the ATP Finals on Saturday. Let’s take a look at how the Twitter world reacted following his surreal win against Daniil Medvedev.
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