They were all. Nobody was missing. The history of the sport was there, about to be rewritten, just before establishing a new turning point. Therefore, among the 23 thousand people who filled the Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main campus of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York, the largest on the planet, there were many of the top Hollywood stars: Rami Malek, Brad Pitt, Ben stiller, Bradley Cooper, Alec baldwin and Joseph Mazzello, among others, did not want to miss the most momentous event in tennis in the last 50 years.
The central stadium of the US Open, the last Grand Slam tournament of the season, he had on him in the eyes of the world. Legends had put the soul in that place. There, on that concrete court where Novak Djokovic, within an accumulation of minutes, He would take the last step on the ladder that would take him straight to heaven, the place where the gods lie and where legends rest. Above all, and above all, a person: Rod Laver, the mythical Australian that the Serbian would reach in a few hours. This would not be an ordinary US Open final, in addition to the fact that a match of this caliber never is. What was at stake? History was at stake. So Laver himself sat in his box, waiting for his record to be equaled. And waiting, of course, for power handing the trophy to a Djokovic hungrier for glory than ever.
Led Zeppelin brought out Stairway to Heaven in 1971, barely two years after the feat he had built Laver, the eminence who was in the Arthur Ashe with a cap whose legend reflected “Laver Cup”, the name Roger Federer gave to his famous competition exhibition in honor of his giant figure. The fabulous Australian had finalized the Grand Slam calendar in 1969: she won all four Majors in the same season, seven years after having achieved it outside of professional tennis in 1962, as did John Donald Budge in 1938. So did the American. Maureen Connolly in 1953, the australian Margaret Court in 1970 and the german Steffi Graf in 1988. But the only male who had done so since the beginning of the Open Era (1968) was Laver. And in a matter of hours would be accompanied by Djokovic.
The last stumbling block, however, broke all forecasts. Nobody in the world, not even in the stadium itself, thought that the Russian Daniil Medvedev, the last step to step on for Djokovic, could prevail in straight sets in a match of anthological dyes. No one except Medvedev himself, the one chosen to break the Big 3’s hegemony for the first time in a Grand Slam tournament: the Russian won 6-4, 6-4 and 6-4, in a performance that was close to perfection, to celebrate his first big trophy and deprive the Serbian of his place in paradise.
Number two in the ranking He is the first player of the new generation to win a Grand Slam cup from his hands to a member of the greatest hegemony ever in the annals of tennis, which was imposed by Djokovic himself along with Federer and Rafael Nadal. It is the first great blow on the Old Guard. Medvedev played the most flying game of his career and, most astonishingly, in more than two and a quarter hours of play he dropped the level. Her cruising speed caressed excellence. He never let go of the game, beyond the weight of a rival looking for the Grand Slam and also the tiebreaker in number of Majors with Federer and Nadal, with whom he shares the record with 20 crowns.
Medvedev reaped one hundred percent of points played with the first serve in an overwhelming first set; eighty throughout the entire game. A physique without holes. A power worthy of a machine. And, above all, an emotional integrity polished from the work of his mental coach Francisca Dauzet, a key piece to become the third Russian Grand Slam champion after Yevgueni Kafelnikov -Roland Garros 1996 and Australia 1999- and Marat Safin -US Open 2000 and Australia 2005-.
“For me you are the best player of all time”, Medvedev told a Djokovic who was seen evicted except from match point which he saved when the Russian served 6-4, 6-4, 5-2 and 40-30. From that moment the Serbian received an injection of energy from people, something he had never experienced throughout his career and rehearsed a kind of comeback, although it would have needed little less than a miracle. “Although I did not win tonight my heart is full of joy. I am the happiest man in the world. They touched my soul. I’ve never felt this, “she said through tears.
Perhaps in a sudden change of plans, because no one predicted such a result, the American Stan Smith, champion in 1971, was the one who replaced Laver in the delivery of the trophy winner, a relic that Medvedev eventually received. In counterpart with what Zeppelin reflects in Stairway to Heaven –There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold , for Djokovic nothing, not even the last step, shone like gold.
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