2024 US Open Tennis: Popyrin bounces Djokovic

[Music] welcome to the Primo's musings [Music] podcast good morning this is Shri Primo here and today I wanted to talk a little bit about what happened yesterday in the US Open two days ago we had alaras uh you know beaten by the Dutchmen and yesterday the world number two Novak jokovic who was going for his unprecedented 25 um Grand Slam uh fell to Alexi poin and we talked about that but poin he won the Montreal that's a masters thousand series and he played one of his best matches and I think uh in the past J witch has beaten him handily in all the previous meetings just like alarz was beaten had beaten his opponent uh handily and both of them played at an unbelievable level um alz was out of sorts uh a couple days ago jokich from that standpoint I think he's still coming back from the knee injury uh he won an unbelievable um gold medal in Paris Olympics and uh in fact after the post game he did say he wasn't sure whether he wanted to come or not but uh I think it was a grand slam so he willed his way to come in he didn't look that great even in his uh second round match um against jir I think if J had been a little more healthier I think he would have beaten jokovic I think because remember last year J had a two set lead against jokovic uh lot of things could go into it um you know Joko healing from that uh knee injury but the day yesterday belonged to poin I got to watch the match and poin was excellent I me he was serving wide at jokovic and then come to the net and finishing the points uh very quickly because every time you get into a rally with jokich you know it's not going to well get well for you so pin's strategy was to kind of keep the uh points or the lalies to a minimum and he succeeded and his serving was just excellent at to that uh juk which was not on point on serves many double falls in the entire French uh in entire Paris Olympics he had four double Falls he had like a double digit double Falls yesterday that's not going to win you many matches especially um at the top uh these kind of players PO is you know in the top 30 and he took advantage of that and um won the first set for the first two sets jit was very good in this second set um kind of went away from him for away from him for poin but U give credit to him for coming back in the fourth set and serving it out nothing better than serving it out you know uh you know four straight points to to clinch the match for him so what does it do for the rest of the draw it opens up the last to here are some of the statistics I can throw you this the first time since 2017 Joko wit has not won a major um all three U medalists at the French uh Paris Olympics all knocked out uh MTI falling to Brandon Nakashima of United States and that was an impressive Inn for Nakashima coming back and winning in the fourth set 76 uh that match was excellent I got to watch uh the second and the third sets and it was excellent tennis by Brandon akashima I mean he uh knocked out run in the previous round so he looked as good as can be um zov had a little hiccup against CH but managed to win in four sets as well and then when you look at Roode Roode again the previous US Open finalist um played against Shang and Shang looked really good from China looked excellent in the first two sets won the first two sets but rude was just incredible in the last three sets winning 03 and one and and uh it seemed like uh Roode found his rhythm and uh one i' I've watched a couple couple of the games there while I flipping through all the games and uh definitely looked really sharp there and then from an American standpoint Taylor Fritz also are going through but the biggest American uh matchup yesterday was the Ben Shelton tifo I kind of talked about it um they did not have a night patch but it did seem to bleed into the night match um their match was supposed to start at uh 115 but ended up starting a little later but uh it gave a lot of uh folks in the US Open a chance to see one of the great matches you know a five Setter uh it was a Revenge match for TFO he got knocked out of that in the quarterfinals uh last year so excellent playing by TFO hung in there he was down two sets to one but won the last two sets 64 63 both of them were serving bombs and I got to saw see the last two sets and it was tennis at the highest level I mean it was top five tennis uh I know TFO was ranked 20 and Shelton is ranked number 13 but the tennis was just incredible by both the players and it was a margin of Errors where um it was one point here and there would make the difference in someone losing their serve and uh it's the match was uh really as advertised and the winner of the tifo Shelton who do they get they get poin I mean it was going to be jokovic from uh in our initial analysis but this is incredible US Open I think um I'm looking forward to the semi-final um the only Med is left in in the last three um champ men's Champions uh jokovic and alarz being out and like I said this just opens up for a lot of people including ining sinner Tommy Paul um zov Dior medev tifo uh poin anyone could dream I mean this is a dream and you still have rude there and um that's what's amazing about the sport that right now it's not um The Big Three I think there was a stat I saw there's a first time since 2002 you're going to have someone not named feder Nadal and jokovic uh going through uh in the semi-finals and finals so I think this boards well for men's tennis I'm yet to call this is the uh for jokovic I think he's going to regroup he's going to come strong I'm not putting past him having seen it over and over again having seen the uh it played like even Federer did the same thing he took a break and came back and I'm sure jokovic who so mentally tough will rebound as well um on the women's side of things unfortunately for sabalenka she had to start her match very late but she did win uh she started the match past 12 so technically speaking it's today and um she won a hard thre Setter um in uh the women's final and bad news for uh Madison key she continues to fight but um she uh was able to win it she was able to lose to Mertens but very tough for her but good things for Navaro and Navaro and Koko go are on a collision course in fourth round and Zen from China Quinn went oh my God she's like playing Amazing tennis after first round um hiccup she's back and she's playing well and also Bosa I mean she's being trying to find her game and she won against Rose in a very tough third set 10-point tiebreaker so today uh on the women's side you have paulini on top uh Pula is there wasaki is still here in the third round which is great for her and then shatek and um so the the women's uh when sutic is still there so and goo goof is still there so the women's are a little more looking like chalk when I thought the men would be all chalk right now two are the four four seeds are are out and now it's anybody's game so um definitely bods well for a tennis as I said and who knows Draper is on who's going to be playing vany and scho uh who knocked out alarz um and um you have uh deor also against Daniel Avance and then Med of also playing today in the night cap so couple of things that I wanted to talk about there was a stat that not as I think it's been 19 years since we have a backtack US Open champion and that trend is going to continue to 20 right now so um just uh incredible uh what we're going to witness in the US Open semi-finals next Friday so with that I wrap up the uh US Open um well played poin and uh good for a lot of players like tifo rude Zev who move on thanks for listening have a good rest of the day thank you for listening Primo will be back soon [Music]