Novak Djokovic on Wednesday virtually ensured equaling Pete Sampras’ record of ending the year as world No. 1 for the sixth time when he reached the Erste Bank Open quarter-finals in Vienna, as Taiwan’s Jason Jung fell to Daniil Medvedev.
Djokovic defeated Croatia’s Borna Coric 7-6 (13/11), 6-3 and would secure the year-end top spot as long as Rafael Nadal does not take an unlikely wild card into the Sofia event next month.
If the 33-year-old Serb wins the Vienna title on Sunday, he would make sure of the landmark regardless of whether or not Nadal plays in Bulgaria.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Djokovic, who now has 39 wins and just two defeats this year, has been the top-ranked player at the end of a season five times: in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2018.
He shares that mark with career rivals Roger Federer and Nadal.
Sampras achieved the feat six years in succession between 1993 and 1998.
Djokovic also has another target — beating Federer’s all-time best of 310 weeks spent on top of the rankings.
He is enjoying his 292nd week in total as world No. 1.
Should he stay in pole position, he would pass Federer in early March next year.
Djokovic, a 17-time Grand Slam title winner, is playing his first tournament since his straight-sets loss to Nadal in the Roland Garros final more than two weeks ago.
He is seeking a fifth title of the year and faces either Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz or Italian lucky loser Lorenzo Sonego.
“It was very tiring and very challenging,” said Djokovic after his fourth win in four meetings with Coric, the world No. 24.
“Borna is a great fighter. He’s a very good friend of mine. Off the court we’ve known each other for quite a long time,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic came through having saved four set points in the opener.
Elsewhere, Russian fourth seed Medvedev also progressed with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Taiwanese lucky loser Jung.
Third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas opened his Vienna campaign with a 6-7 (3/7), 6-3, 6-4 win over Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff.
The reigning ATP Finals champion is to face Grigor Dimitrov for a place among the final eight.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later