‘It would be a disgrace in my eyes if Novak Djokovic…’, says former ace

Novak Djokovic returned to normal on the eve of the quarterfinals. Furthermore, in a section of the painting that he has remained largely devoid of any major real obstacles. After living with the ghosts of a thigh problem between the first and third rounds, the Serbian phenom disposed of Alex De Minaur with a mammoth performance. The nine-time tournament champion did not concede any break points during the barely two hours of play, which he handled in an extraordinary way both in the set phase and with his return serve. It goes without saying that, in addition to the six breaks that he delivered surgically, he only gave up sixteen points with the serve. Djokovic sealed his success with a 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 and, according to the logic of things, he reaped a new avalanche of records. As well as guaranteeing himself a quarter-final duel with Andrey Rublev, who wins an absolutely crazy match against Holger Rune. I eat? The Russian star not only came back from 2-5 down in the fifth set, but also canceled two match points at 5-6 and, above all, came back from 0-5 in the super tie break. At the bottom of the draw, which was left completely unseeded, Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul will compete incredibly for a semi-final spot. Both obviously newcomers, both presumably already on the verge of a perhaps unrepeatable objective. Bottom line: The defending champion reaches his 13th career Australian Open quarterfinal in nineteen appearances. He equals the score with Jack Crawford and Arian Quist, he is behind Rafa Nadal and John Newcombe -14-, but above all he takes a big step forward towards Roger Federer, who stays at 15.

Latest news on Djokovic’s schedule

Indian Wells Open organisers are doing “everything” to help Novak Djokovic to compete in the ATP Masters 1000 event in April and tournament director Tommy Haas says it would be shameful if he is prevented from taking part. “Obviously the one problem being that he still cannot come to the US If he doesn’t play Indian Wells and Miami in March (it will be tough), they’re supposed to lift those mandates by mid-April. It would be nice to see if we could maybe lift those a little earlier and have him come to play Indian Wells and Miami. I think he wants to play, so we should give him the chance. Hopefully we can have him there. I mean, it would be a disgrace in my eyes if he wasn’t coming to these events, or not allowed to come.”