Novak Djokovic Shares Awesome Explanation Behind His Awkward Dance At U.S. Open

Djokovic broke out the dance moves after punching his ticket into the semifinals in New York.

PublishedSeptember 3, 2025 12:35 PM EDT•UpdatedSeptember 3, 2025 12:18 PM EDT

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Novak Djokovic made things look relatively routine in his four-set victory over American Taylor Fritz to punch his ticket into the semifinals of the U.S. Open on Tuesday night. His on-court celebration, however, was certainly out of the ordinary.

Seconds after Fritz double-faulted to lose the match in disappointing fashion, Djokovic stood on the court and raised his hand to his mouth as if he was drinking something. Then came the dance moves, which isn’t exactly on-brand for the Serb.

Given that the dance was the definition of unique, Djokovic was asked about it during his post-match interview before explaining that it was a tip of the cap to his daughter and the film ‘KPop Demon Hunters.’

“It’s my daughter’s birthday so this is a big present for her,” Djokovic explained. “Actually the dance in the end, she’s going to rate me tomorrow how was the dance because she told me how to dance. It’s ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ and ‘Soda Pop’ is the name of the song. Obviously, it’s a big thing globally for teenagers and for kids, but I didn’t know about it before my daughter told me a few months ago about it. So we’re at home doing different choreographies and this is one of them, so hopefully I’ll make her smile when she wakes up tomorrow morning.”

Djokovic: just a dad practicing dance moves with his daughter at home, who also happens to be arguably the greatest tennis player to ever live.

A quick search for ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ shows that it is an animated movie on Netflix and has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 98%, which is wildly impressive.

Next up for Djokovic in the semifinals is a matchup with World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz on Friday. Djokovic holds a 5-3 all-time record against the Spanish phenom, and if he improves to six wins against Alcaraz, it’s a fair assumption that his celebrations on the court will be more intense than a KPop dance routine.