MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 The Boston Globe Sports C7
Ailing Djokovic out after retiring in third set
By Howard Fendrich
and Brian Mahoney
ASSOCIATEDPRESS
NEW YORK — Defending
champion and No. 1 seed No-
vak Djokovic’s stay at the US
Open ended
abruptly when
he stopped
playing during his fourth-
round match against Stan
Wawrinka on Sunday night be-
cause of pain in his left shoul-
der.
Djokovic was trailing, 6-4,
7-5, 2-1, and being thoroughly
outplayed when he retired from
the match in Arthur Ashe Stadi-
um, shaking his head as he
walked over to the chair umpire
to say he was conceding.
Some spectators booed as he
left the arena floor to head to
the locker room. Djokovic re-
sponded with a thumbs-up.
‘‘I’m sorry for the crowd. Ob-
viously they came to see a full
match, and just wasn’t to be,’’
Djokovic said at his news con-
ference. ‘‘I mean, a lot of people
didn’t know what’s happening,
so you cannot blame them.’’
The 32-year-old Serb ex-
plained that he had been ‘‘tak-
ing different stuff to kill the
pain instantly; sometimes it
works, sometimes it doesn’t.’’
‘‘The pain was constant for
weeks now,’’ Djokovic said.
Djokovic had won 36 of his
past 37 Grand Slam matches,
and four of the last five major
titles, in one of the most domi-
nant stretches this sport has
seen. That had pushed his Slam
trophy total to 16, moving with-
in four of Roger Federer’s re-
cord 20, and within two of Ra-
fael Nadal’s 18. He also had
been 11-0 in fourth-rounders at
Flushing Meadows.
‘‘It’s never the way you want
to finish the match,’’ said
Wawrinka, who will face No. 5
seed Daniil Medvedev in the
quarterfinals. ‘‘I feel sorry for
Novak.’’
Against Wawrinka, a three-
time major champion himself,
Djokovic never quite had the
usual verve on his shots or
range on his formidable service
returns. He was out of sorts onall manner of shots, accumulat-
ing 30 unforced errors and only12 winners through the first
two sets.He managed to lead, 3-0 and
4-1, in the second set, but that
was about all he had in him.
Soon he was trying to avoid
lengthy points, and nothing
was working.
When that set ended, Djok-
ovic had a trainer on for a mas-
sage, but soon thereafter, his ti-
tle defense was over.
Early, Roger Federer rolled
into his 13th US Open quarter-
final with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-0 victory
over David Goffin, and Serena
Williams advanced to the quar-
ters in the women’s draw.
A year after getting knocked
out in the fourth round, Feder-
er, a five-time champion,
showed there would be no re-
peat of that. He rebounded
from an early break to win the
final five games of the first set
and never let up from there, fin-
ishing it off with a backhand
down the line in a third set that
lasted just 21 minutes.
Federer tied Andre Agassi
for the second-most quarterfi-nal appearances at the US
Open, trailing only Jimmy Con-
nors’s 17. He had been surpris-
ingly stopped a round short in
2018 by John Millman, pre-
venting what would have been
a matchup with eventual cham-
pionDjokovic.
Williams injured her right
ankle, but that didn’t seem to
slow her down in a 6-3, 6-4 vic-
tory over Petra Martic that
moved her into the quarterfi-
nals for a 16th time.
Williams, who received
treatmentonherankle during
a changeover midway through
the second set, came back with
little trouble against the 22nd-
seeded Martic. The No. 8-seed-
ed Williams blasted 38 winners
and won nearly 80 percent of
her first-serve points in a match
thatlastedalittlemorethanan
hour and a half.
She said after the match that
she rolled the ankle and wanted
it taped to get pressure on it
quickly. Williams, a six-time US
Open champ and 23-time
Grand Slam tournament win-
ner,movesontoplayWang
Qiang, who eliminated Ash
Barty, 6-2, 6-4. Barty’s loss left
only one of this year’s major
champions in the women’s
tournament.
With Wimbledon champion
Simona Halep already out in
the second round, only top-
ranked Naomi Osaka remains
among the women who won a
Grand Slam tournament this
year. The defending US Open
champion also won the Austra-
lian Open in January.
Osaka, who recently re-
gained the No. 1 ranking that
Barty held earlier this summer,
was off Sunday after beating 15-
year-old American Coco Gauff
on Saturday night to reach the
round of 16. Barty won her first
Grand Slam in Paris in June.
Coco Gauff is back in the win
column. A night after getting
knocked out of the singles tour-
nament, Gauff teamed with
Caty McNally to move into the
third round of women’s dou-
bles.MATTHEW STOCKMAN/GETTY IMAGES
Trainer Paul Ness tends to Novak Djokovic’s left shoulder before the top seed retired in his third set against Stan Wawrinka.US OPEN
KENA BETANCUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
No. 8 seed Serena Williams swept Petra Martic, 6-3, 6-4, despite rolling her right ankle.#IslandRun
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