The five-time California champion was eliminated by defending champion, Britain's Jack Draper, who celebrated after a three-set comeback - 4:6, 6:4, 7:6 (5) after two hours and 35 minutes of great battle.
It was a fantastic match with many long exchanges and attractive points, but Draper seemed almost insurmountable today – like a wall. The Briton played extremely safely and left his opponent very little room for easy points.
Djokovic, on the other hand, had breathing problems, and probably fatigue, considering that he had to play three sets in the previous two matches in the tournament.
As for the first set, both players easily went through their service games, and there was no break chance, not even a "juice" in the game, until the 10th game, when Novak got three consecutive break points, also a set point, and used the second one for a 1:0 lead.
The Briton was not discouraged by the lost set, on the contrary, he broke his opponent's serve at the start of the second half. Draper held the break until 3:1, and then Djokovic won three games in a row to turn the game around at 4:3.
This seemed to anger the defending champion, who responded with three straight games (taking a break with zero) and fought his way to the third decider after using the third set point (ace shots) in the game to tie the sets, and also nullifying one of his rival's break points to return to 5:5.
In the first game of the third set, we saw several great points on the Serbian tennis player's serve, one of which stands out as a contender for the point of the tournament, and possibly the point of the year. It was ultimately won by the most decorated tennis player of all time.
The Briton was the first to break in the deciding set, taking advantage of his third break point in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. He held Draper's break until 5-4, when he served for a place in the quarterfinals. Then his hand trembled, he made a few errors, and the Belgrade player capitalized on the second break point and fully returned to the match.
A tiebreak followed, with Jack leading 3-1, Novak turning it around to 4-3, and then the 14th seed took a 5-4 lead and had two serves to finish the job. The Serb tied it at 5-5, but the reigning champion won the next two points and set up a duel with Daniil Medvedev.
The Russian defeated domestic tennis player Alex Mikkelsen 2:0 (6:2, 6:4).
Quarterfinal pairings:
Alcaraz – Nori
Drejper – Medvedev
Zverev – Fis
Siner – Tijen
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