Novak Djokovic survived an impossible match at the Australian Open quarter-final: when he was losing 6-4, 6-3 to Lorenzo Musetti, the Italian, World No. 5 (only behind Djokovic) suffered an injury and was forced to retire.
In the press conference after the match, the Serbian admitted that he would have lost the match. However, he is still committed to do as best as possible against Jannik Sinner in the upcoming semifinal, and was upset when a reporter implied that he was "chasing" Jannik and Carlos Alcaraz, in the same way he "chased" Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer.
"I'm chasing Jannik and Carlos? In which sense?", he wondered. "So I'm always the chaser, and I'm never being chased?"
"I find it a little bit disrespectful that you kind of miss out on what happened in between where the times when I started chasing, as you say, Rafa and Roger, and now that I'm chasing Carlos and Jannik, and there's probably about a 15-year period in between where I was dominating the Grand Slams", Djokovic explained.
"It's important to put that in perspective. I don't feel like I'm chasing, to be honest. I'm creating my own history". The Serbian has won more men's singles Grand Slams than any player in history, 24 (Nadal won 22, Federer 20), and the Australian Open was his most successful, winning 10 of those 24, the last time in 2023.
However, he has not won a Grand Slam since US Open 2023, being eliminated in 2024 and 2025 by Alcaraz or Sinner, who won each four of the last eight Grand Slams. It would be very strange that Djokovic would defeat Sinner in the semi-final, but Djokovic wants to continue creating his own history...