{"id":92885,"date":"2025-08-24T18:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/92885\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T18:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:25:07","slug":"novak-djokovic-to-be-in-a-lot-of-trouble-as-tennis-legend-helps-his-us-open-opponent-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/92885\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic to be in ‘a lot of trouble’ as tennis legend helps his US Open opponent | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> will continue his quest to win a historic 25th Grand Slam title at the US Open on Sunday night. The Serb lifted his 24th Major trophy here two years ago, and has not won another of the sport\u2019s biggest trophies since.<\/p>\n

The No. 7 seed will open his campaign against up-and-coming American star Learner Tien on Sunday night, but he\u2019s been warned that the teenager could cause him \u201ca lot of trouble.\u201d Tien caused a huge upset at the Australian Open earlier this year,<\/a> and he now has an extra boost, as tennis legend Michael Chang has joined his team and will be in his box for the match.<\/p>\n

Chang made history at the 1989 French Open, becoming the youngest man to win a Grand Slam title at just 17 years and 109 days old. So he knows exactly what it\u2019s like to be a promising teenager on the tennis tour – and he believes Tien could give Djokovic a run for his money.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like his draw. Obviously Novak is one of the greatest players to play tennis, if not the GOAT himself. Learner has nothing to lose. He has everything to gain,\u201d Chang told the ATP<\/a> ahead of their exciting first-round meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, growing up, Novak would have been one of the great champions he has watched growing up and he is the last of his group of unbelievable players: Rafa [Nadal] and Roger [Federer] and Andy [Murray], all part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former world No. 2 claims Djokovic would have won more Major trophies without Jannik Sinner<\/a> and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> in his way. But he still wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Tien could pull off something special on Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old started the season ranked outside the world\u2019s top 100, but he qualified for the Australian Open<\/a> and stunned Daniil Medvedev<\/a> in the second round.<\/p>\n

And Chang also knows the crowd will be on Tien\u2019s side when he faces Djokovic, as the world No. 50 is playing at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know how he’s necessarily going to be coming out. We\u2019ll obviously expect him to play his best, as he always does, in Grand Slam events,\u201d the former French Open champion added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Learner showed throughout this season that he can give the best players a lot of trouble. And he’s beating some guys that had beaten Novak in past Grand Slams and he should draw confidence from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic will play his first match since losing to Sinner in the Wimbledon<\/a> semi-final. The former world No. 1 skipped the Masters 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati and later admitted he no longer had a proper schedule.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI decided not to play because I wanted to spend more time with my family,\u201d he said ahead of the US Open. \u201cAnd to be honest, you know, I think I earned my right and have the luxury of kind of choosing, picking and choosing where I want to go and what I want to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t actually have any schedule other than Slams, to be honest. To be quite frank with you, I don’t enjoy the two-week Masters events anymore. It’s just way too long for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be the first to receive the latest tennis news, join our WhatsApp community<\/a> or newsletter<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic will continue his quest to win a historic 25th Grand Slam title at the US Open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,68761,68759,68760,3592,85,747,750,1751],"class_list":["post-92885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-djokovic-vs-tien","tag-learner-tien","tag-michael-chang","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}