By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer
MELBOURNE, Australia — An injured Novak Djokovic quit because of a torn muscle in his left leg after dropping the first set of his Australian Open semifinal against Alexander Zverev on Friday (Thursday night PT).
Djokovic lost the opener 7-6 (5) and immediately walked around the net to concede the match to Zverev and shake hands. Spectators booed as the 37-year-old Djokovic walked off toward the locker room, and he stopped, turned around and responded by giving two thumbs up.
At his news conference, Djokovic said the pain in his left leg was “getting worse and worse.” He hurt it during his quarterfinal victory over Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday night and wore white tape around his upper leg against Zverev.
“I knew,” Djokovic said, “even if I won the first set, it was going to be a huge uphill battle for me.”
He was bidding for an 11th championship at the Australian Open and record 25th Grand Slam title overall. But this is the second time in the past four major tournaments he was unable to finish because of an injury: He withdrew from last year’s French Open before the quarterfinals after tearing the meniscus in his right knee during a match.
Djokovic had surgery a couple of days later and immediately reached the final at the following major, Wimbledon, then won a gold medal for Serbia at the Paris Olympics.
On Friday, he was asked whether this might have been his last appearance at Melbourne Park.
“There is a chance. Who knows?” Djokovic said. “I’ll just have to see how the season goes. I want to keep going.”
The second-seeded Zverev reached his first title match at Melbourne Park and on Sunday will face the winner of Friday’s second semifinal between top-seeded Jannik Sinner of Italy, the defending champion, and No. 21 Ben Shelton of the United States.
Zverev is a two-time runner-up at other major tournaments, losing finals in five sets at the 2020 U.S. Open and 2024 French Open.
“The very first thing I…
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