Djokovic Opens US Open at Night Against Navone
Novak Djokovic opens the US Open at night against Argentina's Mariano Navone. Ristic and Lajovic both fell in qualifying, leaving Serbia without a woman in the main draw.
When night falls in New York between Sunday and Monday, only Novak Djokovic and his opponent will still be on court. Tournament organizers placed his first round match in the Sunday night session, which in Serbian time means a start no earlier than one o’clock in the morning. For Djokovic, it’s the opening step in a run at a 25th Grand Slam title, the last of which he won at this very tournament, back in 2023.
His first round rival is Argentina’s Mariano Navone, a player whose natural surface is clay, even though the US Open is played entirely on hard courts. Djokovic was drawn on Thursday, August 27, as the fourth seed, behind Alexander Zverev at the top of the list, defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in second place, and Felix Auger-Aliassime in third.
Should he get past Navone, Djokovic’s second round opponent would be the winner of the match between Matteo Berrettini and Stan Wawrinka. The last Grand Slam of the season, according to some sources, runs from August 30 to September 14, while others list September 13 as the final’s last day.
Where does the draw lead from there?
Predictions diverge from this point on. Kurir has Djokovic facing Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the third round, Andrey Rublev in the round of 16, Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals, and Alcaraz only in the semifinals. Flashscore names Brandon Nakashima and Frances Tiafoe as possible rivals before the quarterfinals. B92’s analysis sticks with a third scenario, naming Alcaraz as the likely quarterfinal opponent, since Djokovic and the Spaniard sit in the same half of the draw, where they cannot meet before the semifinals.
Whichever version plays out, the road to the final looks tough for everyone in that half. Alcaraz returns to New York after a months-long injury layoff, one of the reasons the forecasts differ so widely.
Kecmanovic and Medjedovic open on Sunday too
Miomir Kecmanovic plays his first round match against Denis Shapovalov on Sunday, at around 9 PM Central European Time. The head to head doesn’t favor him: the Canadian leads 5-0, all five wins coming on hard courts, the same surface used at the US Open. Kecmanovic can draw some comfort from their last three meetings, in each of which he took at least one set.
Hamad Medjedovic opens his tournament against Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak. Neither man arrives in New York in good form, and Medjedovic in particular carries a streak of four straight losses into the match.
No Serbian woman in the main draw
The women’s side of the story was decided a day earlier, on Friday, and it closed badly for Serbia. Mia Ristic lost the qualifying final to Japan’s Himeno Sakatsume, 6-4, 6-3, after one hour and 17 minutes. The loss stings all the more because Ristic recently cracked the WTA top 200 for the first time, and a win would have brought her a debut in a Grand Slam main draw.
Dusan Lajovic didn’t get through either. He beat Spain’s David Jorda Sanchis in the qualifying semifinal, 7-5, 7-6, but faded in the final against Hong Kong’s Chak Lam Coleman Wong, 6-4, 6-3. That leaves Serbia without a single woman in the US Open main draw.
For Djokovic, the US Open is the tournament where he last celebrated a Grand Slam title, his 24th, and he now sets out after a 25th. The countdown to his first serve runs toward the night between Sunday and Monday, and until then, attention turns to how Kecmanovic and Medjedovic fare in their own matches, both scheduled earlier that same day.
