Novak Djokovic of Serbia might have had a brief problem near the end of the match with his contact lens, but the number two ranked player in the world came away with a fantastic performance on Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the 2020 Australian Open from Melbourne. Djokovic beat Canada’s Milos Raonic 6-4, 6-3, 7-6.
Djokovic was clearly struggling with his vision, and possibly with his depth perception late in the match according to ESPN, but came away with a marvelous third set tiebreak as he won seven of the eight points.
Through each and every service game in the match, it was a struggle for Raonic to hold serve. Meanwhile Raonic had significant difficulty generating break point opportunities to break Djokovic’s serve.
Djokovic also did a wonderful job in getting Raonic to come to the net, a place where the veteran Canadian seemed extremely uncomfortable. Djokovic won 91% of his points at the net, while Raonic only won 51% of his points at the net (19 of 37).
Djokovic was also able to minimize his unforced errors. He only had 14 the entire match compared to 48 for Raonic.
Despite the loss, there were a lot of positives for Milos Raonic at the 2020 Australian Open. In recent months due to injuries, he had been playing in the shadows of two rising Canadian stars in Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov. However in Melbourne the last two weeks we realized that Raonic still has a lot to give to the game of tennis and based on his brilliant resume to date should be treated as the best Canadian male singles tennis player of all-time.
Djokovic will now play Roger Federer of Switzerland in the semifinals. Federer had a five set battle with American Tennys Sandgren in the other quarterfinal on Tuesday. Despite a groin injury, Federer prevailed and won 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6, 6-3.
