New York [US], September 1 : Novak Djokovic, a modern-day legend with a record 24 Grand Slam titles under his belt, still dreams of adding a 25th in his trophy cabinet at the US Open but knows he is still far from realising it.
Djokovic orchestrated a tidy and crisp performance to trounce Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff and set up a quarter-final showdown with the number four seed and home favourite Taylor Fritz at the tournament. Even though he stands three wins away from turning his dream into reality, the 38-year-old wants to take it one step at a time.
"[It is] still a very long way. For me, [the] past couple of years, I learned one thing [I need to do] right now is to take really one match at a time. And yes, of course, I'm dreaming about winning another Slam, and it would be amazing if I do it here," Djokovic said as quoted from ATP.com.
"But I can't allow myself to go that far with my thinking, because, yeah, I just need to focus on what needs to be done to win a match, next match, next challenge. The last Grand Slam I won was here, actually, two years ago, so it would be a nice journey in the past couple of years to close the circle here again," he added.
The Serbian maestro Djokovic became the oldest man in history to qualify for all four major singles quarter-finals in one season. He also joined Pancho Gonzalez, Ken Rosewall and Jimmy Connors to become the fourth-oldest to advance to the US Open quarter-finals. Djokovic fondly remembers watching Connors' famous run to the semi-finals, at age 39, in 1991. For him, being in the same discussion with Connors is a massive honour.
"I remember that. I remember that run. I mean, I, you know, I was very, very, very, very young. So I don't, you know, avidly remember it when it was happening, but in the years to come, when I was growing up watching a lot of tennis, everyone was, you know, talking about that run being one of the most historic runs we had in sport on any slam," he said.
"You know, Jimmy Connors being one of the greatest tennis players of all time and greatest legends in general, overall, globally, but particularly in this tournament, he's won it like five times and, you know, he's fired up the New York crowd like no other player has done in his career. So yeah, just being the same discussion or same conversation with Jimmy is obviously a huge honour of mine," he added.
Other records will fall if the three-time US Open winner prevails over Fritz in the quarter-finals. The Serbian holds an unblemished 10-0 record over the American in the ATP Head2Head series.
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