Novak Djokovic and the US Open

He might just get himself jabbed - hasn't done Rafa any harm as yet.

is Covid still a thing?, and isn't this why there's been so much disruption and cancellations at airports because of countries covid restrictions and not enough staff  to make checks quick enough even though the worl's moved on and death rates plummeted, the fact he's not willing to be jabbed debunks the myth he's obsessed with his place in history. There's over 11 million illegal immigrants in the US, God knows how many of them haven't been vaxxed, all the vulnerable people with health issues have been though, those 2 things combined make it absolutely pointless banning him, it only serves to devalue the slam.

it's basically politics, same as Australia, didn't work out for Scott Morrison, good to see though it's been confirmed the Russiand and Belorussians can play, making Wimbledon look like the out of touch old fogey mugs they are.

Agreed re Wimbledon - looking like utter clowns, more so by the day.

that's happens when you take your lead from nadine dorries

cant believe novak is doing this to his career.......cant see him ever playing in aus again - government wont let him in - and now he has problems with the USO..........2 slams a year to get past rafa?........can see rafa getting another US open or aus open........year after year everyone writes him off and he still comes backing winning........the competition is not getting harder is it........zverev is injured.....he has the yips on his 2nd serve as well and tsitsipas is never going to rack up the slams. medvedev is 26 and only has 1 slam. coast is clear for carlos to start winning. the rest are nowhere.

https://www.tennismajors.com/us-open-news/i-dont-see-the-logic-djokovic-weighs-in-on-rules-preventing-him-from-playing-us-open-608985.html
,

Even if I get in, they would see me on TV playing tennis and pick me up!



Good to see Novak can still do a basic SWOT analysis

Not USO, but this is some good news for Novak's Aussie Open chances next year.
https://twitter.com/JoshButler/status/1543479227273875457
Josh Butler @JoshButler
“All COVID border restrictions to be lifted” in Australia, says home affairs minister Clare O’Neil - with vaccine requirements to lift from Wednesday, as per statement from health minister Mark Butler

Still needs to get his 3 year visa cancellation cancelled before he can play. Tennis Sandgren will be allowed to play.

More deaths every day from mass shootings in the US but they are more concerned about a virus that

is dangerous only for unhealthy people. Bloody Politicians!

daily mail says its offical - novak cannot play in 2022 us open..........how come he was able to ply last year?
thats 2 slams now - 2022 aus open and 2022 uso that novak cannot play in........and the 2020 wimbledon was cancelled............he could be well ahead of nadal now if not for covid..........if rafa ends up with the most slams, holy moly covid will have decided this............come on rafa win number 23 in september..........

That's sickening, especially as this would have been one of the rare US Opens he had a chance of playing as the third slam of his season rather than as the fourth (less likely to have his usual US Open issue of nothing left in the battery).

Makes zero sense with most countries opening up now including Oz.
American sporting public less likely to fall zombie-like into line than the Australian audience though, especially with Novak being locked out for no sellable reason weeks after an extremely comfortable Wimbledon.

the US open authorities said they do not have a vaccine mandate but every player must comply with the US government vaccine entry requirements for non citizens - if your not a citizen, you can only enter the US if you have the jab.......i think its 2 jabs...........

Edward made the point the Yanks are doing this to keep 3rd world citizens at arms length, making it more difficult for them to enter with vaccine requirements and why they're keeping it in place, affecting Novak.

It's always the lamest slam because from my experience watching you never get the same level that you do in Australia where everyone's fresh, or the French/Wimbledon where everyone's at peak fitness, always a slump after the grass physically and mentally, now we're looking at an Open without Novak, Federer and Nadal based on his hit and miss fitness concerns, they don't even have Serena anymore to sell it to the masses as she's gone at the game and is probably her last tournament.

Tennis in America is a footnote anyway atm, all they really care about is NBA and NFL.

federer has not won a slam in 4 and a half years. hes nearly 41........a slam without him is fine. hes well past it. i wish he would just announce his retirement. him wanting to have one more appearance at wimbledon is pointless......he will be 41/42, will lose and wave to the crowd.......it will probably coincide with novak equalling his 8 wimbledon titles..........

your correct about the us open featuring tired players. its why del potra, cilic and thiem have won......novak has lost 6 finals there........rafa is either injured or he wins it........i would say he has been injured 50 percent of the time he has played at the us open....though news that novak will not be playing will surely fire him up to prepare properly for slam number 23.....what an opportunity.

remember super saturday?.......when they had the mens two semis on the saturday along with the womens final.........forcing the men to play semis and finals back to back ........what a joke.......they also delayed first round matches to the wednesday.......these dumb novelties made the tournament a joke and they finally swapped ratings for decent treatment of the players. the night matches are great though...........there were some awesome novak fed semis under lights. real classics. the atmosphere there is electric.

i recall the 2003 us open when there were 4 days of tennis wiped out by the rain in the second week.........

Even for the players this is getting a bit muddy now.
This was where we were three days ago

21-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic’s chances of playing in the US Open tournament later this month received a big boost when American health chiefs relaxed nationwide coronavirus guidance for unvaccinated people two-and-a-half weeks before the start of the tournament. / The American authorities have made changes to the COVID norms. They have decided they will not discriminate between those who have taken the COVID vaccine and those who haven’t. This will allow the 2022 Wimbledon winner to play the final Grand Slam of the year beginning on August 29.

The US Open organisers are yet to officially announce the development. But it is certain now that Djokovic will be in action in New York.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have announced that they will be relaxing regulations surrounding entry requirements and quarantine. But for now, these changes are currently related to US citizens only.
On Thursday, the CDC, the agency that governs health measures in the United States, announced the end of many of the COVID restrictions. The main one is that, from Friday, vaccinated people will be treated the same as unvaccinated people.
Source https://www.timesnownews.com/sports/tennis

But Medvedev's press conference indicated the players are still somewhat in the dark as to what will happen

https://twitter.com/eurosport/status/1559222157565108224

"But it is certain now that Djokovic will be in action in New York."
How do they come up with this, when the changes only relates to Americans so far?

its official. hes not playing. this rule - unvaccinated non US citizens cannot enter the country - is a total joke...........he played last year. and covid rules in the US have been relaxed since. this is the 2nd slam that novak has missed due to covid and wimbledon was cancelled in 2020..........

That really is bizarre.

So how was he able to play last year unvaccinated?

Glad he's stuck by his own morals and it puts to bed that he's obsessed by his place in tennis history, which this proves he's clearly not.

What it does do, same with Australia, if completely devalue the US Open as a sideshow, taking out the best player in the world who's won 4 of the last 6 slams he's played in, hope Medvedev wins so as not to give Nadal another cheap slam win. The US Open suffers enough from it's place on the calendar with tired performances from weary players without to taking out a star player, Serena will be out in the first week as well, don't think Tennis in America has ever had more limited interest than it does now.

Novak obvs knows he's got time on his side so can afford not to get the jab & rest up.

Certainly no guarantee that he'd win as it hasn't been his best slam over the years.

As for "cheap slam wins", are we going to discount Fed's wins when the other 2 weren't around or Novak's when Fed & Rafa are gone?

Novak's 35, he's on limited time, Fed won cheap slams as well, but that's not the point in hand here, it's about this slam and yet again Nadal is being given a free run, I've never had a preference between these two, when one is dominating, I want the other to start winning, it's nothing against him, but it makes the slam race manufactured given we could now have Rafa winning 2 of the hard courts this year without the favourite, or who would have been the favourite. Novak would have had more gas in the tank for this slam for once given he's only played 28 matches, he's usually played far more at this point hence burnout for the US Open.

nadal has played novak in 3 finals here - 2010, 2011 & 2013.......its 2-1 nadal. if nadal wins, its not a cheap one. i dont agree with the aus and US open rules but given that billions of the jabs have been given out, novak should have gotten it. he would be ahead of nadal by now and set a slam record that wont be beaten. he is also missing out on his chance to set masters records that wont be beaten as he missed 4 masters events in north america........
if the aus open and US open dont relax the rules in 2023, we really are entering the realm of complete and utter sporting farce. there was an austrailan women cricketer who played with a positive covid test recently........she did the right thing. and those players at wimbledon who tested positive and dropped out - i think berretinni was one - should have played. they could have if they wanted to, but the backlash from the liberal media in the uk would have been deadly.  we have all gone to schoool with the flu. imagine if nadal got to the final here and on the saturday morning tested positive for covid and the final was cancelled......what a joke......im not sure what the rules are in the USO for testing positive - if u can play if u want or are forced to drop out.
john mcenroe came out swinging last week about this joke rule preventing novak from playing. the government in the US and new york are the biggest left wing gov in the history of the US, so this is what u get.

This would have been one of Novak's best chances to win the US Open. As Mes mentioned he'd have more in the tank than usual (due to not playing in Oz) not just from an athletic pov but due to the way Novak's intensity seems to tail off after 3/4 of the usual season which is very specific to him as a member of the Elite (eg Murray when he was winning slams was the opposite, mugging the Australian and winning the stuff in the later part of the year SW19/olympics/US open)

But the big point for me is this is a potential FOUR SLAM SWING in 2022 alone in terms of the Race for total slams which now makes the overall Number Count absolutely meaningless. Even if Nadal doesn't take win the event he still gets an unjust +1 in that count (+3 overall) through Novak's absence.

Novak might seem stubborn but he is putting his health and his beliefs ahead of personal gain. (He is getting a lot of admiration outside the tennis bubble for that).

Two significant differences from Australia are
1 that the 'powers that be' seemed to believe they could strong arm him into falling into line at the start of the year because the perception was he would prioritise the race for all time most slams. Now they know he won't do this, it seems to be just about making an example of him as the most prominent example of autonomy based non-compliance.
2 the reasoning behind not letting him play is not easy to explain in a way that a 'small child or a golden retriever would understand'* and as such is going to cause bedlam on Social Media.

* From a classic Jeremy Irons movie

Rafa Nadal doesn't play US Open 2021. Novak does, loses to Medvedev in the final.
Novak Djokovic doesn't play Australian Open 2022. Rafa does, beats Medvedev in the final. Somehow this is a cheap Slam?
Would Djokovic winning US Open 2020 or 2021 have counted as cheap Slams since Rafa didn't play? Pretty sure it wouldn't since Djokovic fans only uses asterisks when it suits their agenda.

Would Djokovic winning US Open 2020 or 2021 have counted as cheap Slams since Rafa didn't play?


If Nadal had been fit/ready to play but prevented from doing so for political reasons then 100% yes absolutely.
Circumstances not remotely comparable.

He was prevented to do so because of his own choices. Just like Rafa made a choice not to play US Open 2020. He was fit and ready to play.

It's also not a conspiracy against Novak Djokovic, so saying political reasons is a bit of a stretch, unless all laws and guideless are now political reasons. If you are not vaccinated you are not let into certain countries, regardless of if you are the best tennis player on the planet or not. Fine if you call the Wimbledon ban political reasons because that was only applied to these tennis players, but Novak not being allowed entry into Australia or US is a result of the choice these countries have made for all foreigners and as a foreigner this then applies to Novak as well.

Rafa made a choice not to play US Open 2020. He was fit and ready to play.

I agree with this.

He was prevented to do so because of his own choices.

I totally disagree with this

Nadal's choice was not to play in 2020.
Novak's choice was to play in 2022.

Nadal would have liked to play, but didn't deem travelling to the US safe at the time. He put personal health first, just like Novak has done in 2021-22.

Just like a lot of other players did in 2020, especially WTA players.

Novak had just come off of a 5 set semi final against a prime Federer in 2010 whereas Nadal had a train against Youzhney, in 2013 he had just come off of another 5 set marathon against Wawrinka, Nadal had a 3 set train against Gasquet and so ND was handicapped going into both finals. Medvedev clearly beat an absolutely cream crackered Djokovic in the US final last year chasing a calendar slam. Of course taking out the best player in the world in top form having just won Wimbledon means whoever wins it, it's a cheap slam, just like in Australia given it was his title to defend and just won 3 of the last 4 slams.

Cream crackered in 2021 Djokovic played one event between Wimbledon and US Open.

Medvedev played that same event + Cincy (SF) & Canada (W).

Djokovic played one event between Wimbledon and US Open.


You know these guys prepare and manage intensity completely and exclusively around the slams. Novak is unique in the way he expends his intensity across the major events. It's like a deal with the devil or a late 19th century magician battle kind of thing. He gets dazzling levels of intensity but at great expense. Which is why in a year where he hasn't had to do this till five months into the year he had a massive edge going into the US Open he is being locked out of.

ffs he was going for 4 slams in a row, a calendar slam, unprecedented in the modern era, that brings a huge mental toll and pressure, something Medvedev will never relate to, how many matches they played between those slams is irrelevant.

sounds like excuses. Djokovic is a mental beast.

Aug 25, 2022 -- 6:34PM, mesmerised wrote:

Novak had just come off of a 5 set semi final against a prime Federer in 2010 whereas Nadal had a train against Youzhney, in 2013 he had just come off of another 5 set marathon against Wawrinka, Nadal had a 3 set train against Gasquet and so ND was handicapped going into both finals. Medvedev clearly beat an absolutely cream crackered Djokovic in the US final last year chasing a calendar slam. Of course taking out the best player in the world in top form having just won Wimbledon means whoever wins it, it's a cheap slam, just like in Australia given it was his title to defend and just won 3 of the last 4 slams.

Lol mes.

So, to determine whether or not a slam win is cheap or not, we have to consider:

a) was other big rival present
b) opponents played
c) number of sets played
d) time spent on court.

Anything else?

e) if going for a Calendar Slam or not.

Jesus Christ, it's simple stuff that doesn't require a long conversation

Best player in the world, just won Wimbledon, real world number 1 if it wasn't for circumstances, would have been favourite, now suddenly taking out of the tournament means whoever wins it, it is a cheapened slam.

If Medvedev had beaten Novak in Australia 2021, that would have also been a cheapened Slam, right? Because of the ab tears and who knows what other injuries Novak suffered on his way to the final.

You have two Elite players going toe to two for unprecedented and probably unrepeatable achievement.
(The other bit part players (Medvedev etc) are essentially irrelevant.)

If both Elite players are
(1) fit
(2) ready
(3) choosing to play

but one is prevented from playing by decisions made on non-sport related grounds by third parties
then it is a cheap slam

This has now happened to Novak twice
It has happened to Nadal zero times.

Disagree Journeyman,

Novak has chosen not to play for health/bodily autonomy reasons twice in the same way Rafa chose not to play USO 2020.

Novak hasn't been stopped from playing.

You'd have more of a point if Novak was Russian & was stopped from playing Wimbledon.

exactly jm, even making the most basic of observations about taking the best player in the world out of a slam = cheapened slam, sends these demented Federer and Nadal superfans into a frenzy where they start launching all sorts of completely pointless counter arguments with go to tactics such as goalpost shifting. It's such a simple common sense point of view all it requires is a simple acknowledgement, but that's the internet for you, it's a tribalistic swamp full of love struck fanboys willing to drown defending their guy no matter how daft they look. When Rangers were demoted a few divisions, Celtic won a load of cheapened titles, no difference. The most realistic rival was taking out of the equation.

it does not matter whether Novak or the US is to blame for him being there or not, if he was injured, it'd be a cheapened slam because the competition would not be the same level for Nadal, if he was disqualified as he was, it'd be a cheapened slam because he was no longer there, a cheapened slam is a cheapened slam is a cheapened slam.

how many cheapened Slams for Djokovic?

Lol mes.

Talks of goalpost shifting the mentions the SPL where there have only ever been 2 teams forever.

*then

ok we'll add to the list

f) not fully fit
g) disqualification

Novak has chosen not to play for health/bodily autonomy reasons twice


That's inaccurate. You're using linguistics to get round my rock solid formula for a cheap slam.

Members of the Novak fan club need to agree on criteria for cheapened Slam.

h) when Novak doesn't win

h) should be listed as a)

True

Ignore h)

Too obvious.

if nadal wins the 2022 USO he will join pete sampras on 7 hardcourt slams, going ahead of agassi.
poor old roger federer who wants to comeback for a swansong at wimbledon.......it isnt working for serena roger. dont bother. all your records are getting trounced........novak to soon out wimbledon you.

Tbf, 3rd place on the all-time list ain't too shabby.

I think you're view of Fed is tainted by the annual sickening love-in called Wimbledon.

The 2019 final especially was so sycophantic I was delighted Novak won.

Having said that, his sheer artistry & shot making probably surpasses the other 2 but mentally unable to grind out results like them either.

The 6-0, 7-6, 6-0 demolition of Hewitt still worth a watch.

^ USO final 2004

Fed definitely the GOAT in terms of earnings.

$90m the last 12 months without picking up a racquet.

feds performance when beating agassi in the tennis masters final in 2003 6-3 6-0 6-4 was a sign of things to come in terms of dominating everyone except nadal from 2004-2009......

Murray had a 7-4 h2h record v Federer during that period, was 7-2 at one point.

dear mesmerised........andy murray played roger federer in 3 slam finals and fed kicked his ass in all three.

yes but you said he dominated everyone between 04-09 bar Nadal, he didn't dominate Murray during that time, though of course he went on to better him in slams, though Murray took Gold off of him at his peak at Wimbledon in the best of 5, probably his career highlight.