Djokovic started sharply against Musetti, going an immediate break up, but then spectacularly lost his way.<\/p>\n
A dreadful miss on an overhead handed the break back to Musetti and Djokovic never recovered, sending down just one ace and committing 18 unforced errors to nine winners on his way to losing the first set.<\/p>\n
Djokovic frequently turned to his box in disbelief and annoyance – but he only had himself to blame at the start of the second set. <\/p>\n
After breaking Musetti and getting out to a 30-0 lead on serve, Djokovic hit five unforced errors in six points to hand the initiative back.<\/p>\n
Anchored by a one-handed backhand that kept Djokovic guessing and an improved serve, Musetti held off his opponent to move within touching distance of a first Australian Open semi-final.<\/p>\n
Musetti’s level just made the injury all the more surprising. After being broken in the third set, he immediately called for the trainer and, after a valiant attempt at his next service game, called it quits.<\/p>\n
Djokovic had warm words for his opponent at the net and afterwards – and, having struggled with physical issues early in his career, would know how devastated the 23-year-old was.<\/p>\n
Despite the good fortune, Djokovic will know he will need to improve if he is to win an 11th Australian Open title, with two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner potentially waiting in the last four.<\/p>\n
World number two Sinner, who beat Djokovic in the semi-finals two years ago, faces American eighth seed Ben Shelton later on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Djokovic started sharply against Musetti, going an immediate break up, but then spectacularly lost his way. A dreadful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-261485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}