Novak Djokovic defeats Taylor Fritz to reach 11th Australian Open semifinal
By George Ramsay, CNN
(CNN) — Novak Djokovic continued his pursuit of a record-breaking 25th grand slam title with victory against Taylor Fritz in the Australian Open quarterfinals.
He came through 7-6(7-3) 4-6 6-2 6-3 in a tough contest, but one in which the top seed always seemed to have the upper hand as the match wore on.
Remarkably, Djokovic is now on a 33-match winning streak in Melbourne and remains on course to win an 11th Australian Open crown. According to Opta, he has equaled Monica Seles’ tournament record for the most consecutive singles wins.
“I suffered a lot the first couple of sets, also due to his high-quality tennis,” Djokovic said during his on-court interview after the match.
“He was serving well, he was staying close to the line, he was really kind of suffocating me from the back of the court. I was most of the rallies on my back foot. It was really difficult to find the right timing.”
Djokovic had eight break points in the first set – and three in the opening game alone – but was unable to convert any of them.
Fritz, meanwhile – playing in his third grand slam quarterfinal and first at the Australian Open – engineered two set points at 6-5 only for the world No. 1 to shut the door with a backhand winner and an ace.
After taking the first set in a tie break, Djokovic was immediately broken and trailed for the remainder of the second set as Fritz leveled the match.
But it didn’t take long for ‘Nole’ to hit back. He moved into a 3-0 lead in the third set and then broke the American again at 5-2, this time to love, to seize control of the match.
The pair traded breaks in the fourth set as Fritz tried to keep a foothold in the contest, but a double fault at 4-3 handed Djokovic the advantage and, from there, the 36-year-old was able to serve out for the win.
He is now just two wins away from moving clear of Margaret Court and standing alone at the top of the all-time list for men or women on 25 grand slam singles title.
Ending the match with 52 winners – and 26 unforced errors to Fritz’s 39 – Djokovic did have difficulty closing out break points and failed to convert any of his 15 chances in the first two sets.
That statistic got better as the match wore on, and by the end of Tuesday’s match, he had converted four of his 21 break points across the three-hour, 45-minute contest.
“I managed to break him when it mattered, in the third and the fourth,” Djokovic said. “I think I upped my game probably midway through the third set, all the way to the end.”
The Serb now owns a 9-0 record in his head-to-head with Fritz and will face Jannik Sinner in the semifinals, the Italian having defeated Russian Andrey Rublev in their quarterfinal, 6-4 7-6(7-5) 6-3.
Sinner is yet to drop a set this tournament, but he is up against one daunting statistic: Djokovic has never lost any of his 10 previous semifinals at the Australian Open.
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