losing in his opening match of the Cincinnati Open<\/a> to Thiago Agust\u00edn Tirante while struggling with the humidity. However, he now sees the silver lining in that defeat, which he believes gave him the time to make sure he was in optimal shape for the US Open. \u201cI don\u2019t like early losses anywhere, to be honest, but it gave me time to be prepared for US Open in a most adequate way,\u201d he said. \u201cI had almost a few weeks, actually two weeks, to really train and get my body and mind into the right state, prepared for what\u2019s coming up.<\/p>\n\u201cSo it remains to be seen. If you ask me if I\u2019m prepared, I feel like I am as best as I can be, but it\u2019s different training and then getting out on the Arthur Ashe Stadium and playing best-of-five.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the course of the past two years, nobody other than Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner has been as consistent at the grand slams as Djokovic, who has reached the semi-finals or better in six of his last seven such tournaments. However, Sinner and Alcaraz account for five of those defeats, along with a retirement loss at the Australian Open last year.<\/p>\n
With Sinner absent because of injury and Alcaraz competing for the first time since being sidelined for four and a half months by a right wrist problem, the field is wide open. Had this scenario unfolded 12 months ago, Djokovic would have been the clear favourite at the start of the tournament, but a year is a very long time at 39 years old and despite how high his level remains, each tournament brings more physical problems for the Serb to manage.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Elena Rybakina declared herself healthy for the US Open as she recovers from a foot injury. She is aiming to take advantage of a golden opportunity to claim the No 1 ranking for the first time. \u201cI didn\u2019t play for exactly a week, and we consulted with different doctors. I have been doing the recovery. Slowly started to go on the court. Just a lot of gym,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Elena Rybakina had to retire from the Cincinnati Open with a foot injury but has declared herself fit for Flushing Meadows. Photograph: Robert Prange\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, because we didn\u2019t know exactly how the foot was gonna react, since it was very painful for me to go and serve in that match in Cincinnati, because I wanted to try once more. Then for a couple of days, it was painful to even walk. Afterwards we managed to do everything possible for it to get better, and I\u2019m glad how the process is going for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rybakina, the second seed and Australian Open champion, begins the tournament at No 1 in the live rankings and she can be overtaken only if Aryna Sabalenka, who has been No 1 for 97 consecutive weeks, Coco Gauff or Jessica Pegula win the title and Rybakina fails to reach the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
After a difficult period during the summer, Rybakina found her form again during the North American hard-court swing, reaching the final in the Canadian Open before moving into the last eight of the Cincinnati Open. However, she was forced to retire early in her quarter-final against Swiatek last week by a foot injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t check the rankings [for] the point situation, but from the media mostly I know where I should get, how the others should play. It\u2019s all the different scenarios,\u201d she said. \u201cBut for me, especially now when I had this injury last week, I feel like the most important thing is to just try to stay healthy, play one match at a time, because this is not the last tournament of the year. Of course it\u2019s a grand slam, and you want to do well. But you have plenty of opportunities after if you\u2019re healthy and you keep on playing. I\u2019m trying not to think about it at all, and just play one match at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic said he was as prepared as he could be for the US Open as he attempts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-754089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}