Popyrin after overcoming Djokovic: “Winning Montreal was bigger than today”

Coming into Friday night’s US Open third round match v Novak Djokovic, Alexei Popyrin was having the summer of his life.

The Australian had reached his first ever third round at Wimbledon and, more importantly, collected the biggest tile of his career – at the Masters 1000 event in Montreal. During that title-winning run, Popyrin had defeated the likes of Ben Shelton, Grigor Dimitrov, Hubert Hurkacz, and Andrey Rublev – not exactly an easy run, even if some of the other top players skipped the event. On the other hand, in a year of progress, he had also lost at two of the last three majors to Novak Djokovic, his US Open third round opponent, meaning that a victory on Friday was still a somewhat unlikely prospect.

However, Popyrin defied the odds and put forth an outstanding performance vs the defending champion, defeating the Serb in a four set match (6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4) that will live long in the memory of the No 28 in the world. This year’s US Open represents the Australian’s first fourth round at the majors, having lost his previous five third round matches.

The importance of context

After the match, the Montreal champion made sure to keep the match victory within the wider context of his recent accomplishments:

“For me, winning Montreal was way bigger than today, just because it’s a title, and it’s a Masters 1000 title. That felt unbelievable. Today was something that I kind of thought I could do, you know? Winning a Masters 1000 was not something that, you know, kind of crossed my head. But my two experiences against him earlier this year in Australian Open and Wimbledon kind of gave me the confidence to go out there tonight and believe that I could win and actually do it and believe it. So when I did it, it kind of felt that kind of proved me right, proved what I was thinking right. Yeah, it wasn’t something that, you know, was unbelievable like Montreal, for example.”

it wasn’t something that, you know, was unbelievable like Montreal

Popyrin on comparing the victory v Djokovic with his first Masters 1000 title

Popyrin emphasised the importance of the Montreal title on his confidence.:

“Like I said earlier this week that for me the most important part was to take that confidence from Montreal and bring it into this week, but not only this week but hopefully for years to come. All these top-10 players, top-5 players, they play on this confidence all the time, and they steadily build on it. That’s kind of what I want to do, and hopefully I can.”

The Djokovic factor

With the win, Popyrin handed Djokovic his earliest loss at a major since the 2017 Australian Open, and guarantees that it will be the first year since 2010 that the Serb has played all four majors and not got his hands on a trophy.

Whilst the Australian was solidly the better player in the first two sets, the 24-time major champion stormed back to take the third set 6-2, before Popyrin was broken while serving for the match at 5-2 in the fourth. However, the double break proved crucial, with the No 28 serving out the match on the second time of asking.

Djokovic has previously come back from two-sets-to-love down on eight occasions, including at last year’s US Open vs Laslo Djere, and Popyrin made clear in his press conference that he hoped to avoid becoming the ninth victim:

“He wasn’t playing his best tennis. I was waiting for him to kind of step up. I felt like he did in the third set. But my level went down. I didn’t make too many first serves. Yeah, and also there is countless times when he’s come back from two sets to love down, and I didn’t want to be one of those moments where Novak kind of stepped up and came back from two sets to love down. That was going through my head.”

I didn’t want to be one of those moments where Novak kind of stepped up and came back from two sets to love down

Popyrin on the threat of a Djokovic comeback

Popyrin will face American Frances Tiafoe, who defeated Ben Shelton (4-6, 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3) in the fourth round on Sunday for a place in the US Open quarter-finals.

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