MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014 Novak Djokovic has advanced to the Australian Open semifinals after a devastated Lorenzo Musetti was forced to retire hurt when leading by two sets to love.<\/p>\n
The Italian No. 5 seed led 6-4, 6-3 in a dominant display, before retiring early in the third set. \u201cI honestly have no words to describe how I\u2019m feeling right now and how tough it is for me,\u201d Musetti said in a news conference afterward.<\/p>\n
He explained that he believed he had suffered a tear in the right adductor area, but will undergo further tests to discover the details and severity.<\/p>\n
He first felt the injury at the start of the second set, which he ended up winning comfortably.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was feeling that the pain was increasing, and the problem was not going away,\u201d he added. Serving at 1-1 in the third set, Musetti winced in pain going for a forehand and called for the trainer to come onto the court at the end of the game. As Musetti received treatment, Djokovic, who had put in a listless performance hampered by blisters, stretched out his leg. He said in his news conference that the blisters weren\u2019t a major concern.<\/p>\n
When play resumed, Musetti was clearly physically compromised and the end was inevitable. Djokovic held for 3-1 and was up 15-40 on Musetti\u2019s serve when the Italian admitted defeat.<\/p>\n
Djokovic knew this was a major reprieve. He had been on the brink of what would have been a hugely dispiriting defeat, but in the end advanced 4-6, 3-6, 3-1(ret).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was by far the better player, I was on my way home,\u201d an apologetic Djokovic said in his on-court interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should have been a winner today, there\u2019s no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10-time Australian Open champion described himself as \u201cextremely lucky\u201d and, later in the interview room, described the situation Musetti found himself as \u201chorrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musetti said in his news conference that the injury happened at the start of the second set, but that he was able to manage it by attacking and using his serve to win quick points.<\/p>\n
But at the start of the third set, after sitting down for a changeover, the cooldown caused the pain to increase and it then became impossible for him to play on.<\/p>\n
For Musetti, this will have brought back painful memories of the right-thigh injury that forced him to retire in the fourth set of last year\u2019s French Open semifinal against Carlos Alcaraz after winning the first set. It was a similar story in the Monte Carlo final against the same player a couple of months earlier, when Musetti won the first set but then just one game subsequently as he tried to play through another upper-leg injury.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Back in 2021, Musetti retired in the fifth set of a French Open fourth round against Djokovic having won the first two sets as he battled cramps and a back issue.<\/p>\n
But this one was surely the cruelest of the lot. Musetti was much the better player in the first two sets, and was on the verge of his biggest win at a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I never imagined the feeling of leading two sets to zero against Novak and playing like that and having the lead of the match like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be forced to retire is something that, of course, I will never imagine. Of course, it\u2019s really painful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, Djokovic still has the chance to win a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam this week, and will next face two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner or No. 8 seed Ben Shelton in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
But he looked all of his 38 years for the first two sets here. If his opponent is Sinner, then Djokovic will be second-favorite to advance to Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
Djokovic said as much himself in what was an often terse news conference. \u201cI wasn\u2019t playing close to my best today, so I\u2019m going to have to change that around,\u201d he said. \u201cIt (Musetti\u2019s level) was great, for sure. But I think I\u2019ve underperformed for the level that I showed throughout this tournament up to today<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to play better. I mean, no doubt about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the challenge of trying to catch up with Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz and how that compared to doing the same early on in his career with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, Djokovic responded: \u201cI\u2019m chasing Jannik and Carlos? In which sense?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI find it a little bit disrespectful that you kind of miss out on what happened in between,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s probably about a 15-year period in between where I was dominating the Grand Slams. So I think it\u2019s important to put that in perspective. I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m chasing, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic acknowledged the gap between Sinner and Alcaraz and the rest, but said: \u201cDoes that mean that I walk out with a white flag? No. I\u2019m going to fight until the last shot, until the last point, and do my very best to challenge them.\u201d<\/p>\n
To win a 25th Grand Slam on Sunday, he\u2019ll likely have to beat them both in the next few days. Which after trailing by two sets to the physically compromised Musetti would surely be one of the greatest turnarounds of his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014 Novak Djokovic has advanced to the Australian Open semifinals after a devastated Lorenzo Musetti was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-436247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}