Ten-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic suffered a sensational injury in Friday’s semi-final against Alexander Zverev after losing the first set, with parts of Rod Laver Arena off the court.
The Serb injured his groin area in the quarter-finals against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and arrived on court wearing black tape and a white bandage on his upper thigh.
Despite the illness, he looked close to his best in 81 minutes in a taxing first set, which the German defeated 7-5 in a tiebreak. But after missing a volley to give his rival Xavier the set, the Serb moved to the other side of the court and embraced the second seed.
He drew cheers from sections of the crowd, who had paid hundreds of dollars for tickets.
In his on-court interview after the match, Zverev criticized Djokovic’s critics. “The first thing I want to say is, please don’t praise a player when he goes out with an injury,” he said to applause from the majority of the crowd.
“I know everybody has paid for the tickets and everybody wants to see, hopefully, a great five-set match and everything. But you have to understand, Novak Djokovic is someone who has played for the last 20 years. has given everything of his life to this sport.
It was a terrible end to another remarkable tournament for Djokovic, who knocked out heavily favored third seed Alcaraz in the previous round. Earlier in the tournament, he refused to give an on-court interview after he felt Channel Nine reporter Tony Jones had disrespected him in a televised cross.
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