Reigning champion Novak Djokovic fought back to beat Alexander Zverev 6-7 (6), 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (6) on Tuesday to reserve his place in the semifinals of the Australian Open, where he will face Russian Aslan Karatsev.
The Serbian, world number one, bounced back after losing a tight first set in a tie-break, but trailed in the third and fourth sets before turning them around.
Sixth-seeded German Zverev allowed Djokovic to rally 4-1 in the third set and was also 3-0 up in the fourth.
Djokovic once again wore duct tape around his abdominal area from the injury he sustained in his third round win over Taylor Fritz. But it didn’t seem to bother him in his goal of reaching his 39th Grand Slam semi-final, where he will face a seemingly easy opponent.
“After the tie-break I felt like I started to move better, I started to serve better and I finished with more aces than he did, which is a miracle against someone like Sacha,” Djokovic said.
“There were a lot of nerves there, emotionally I feel a little exhausted, it was a great battle, bad luck for Sacha. We have tried our best,” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday Karatsev beat a weakened Grigor Dimitrov 2-6 6-4 6-1 6-2 to become the first male tennis player of the open era to reach the semi-finals in his Grand Slam debut.
The world number 114 was also the fifth-ranked player to reach the semi-finals of a men’s main tournament in the open era and the lowest-ranked player to reach a Grand Slam semi-final in two decades.
“It’s an incredible feeling,” said the 27-year-old, whose victory was marked only by canned applause as fans are still banned from Melbourne Park due to a five-day lockdown due to the coronavirus.
Dimitrov, who had not lost any sets on his way to the quarterfinals, stated that he had suffered a back spasm on Monday.
With the quarter-final match between Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev on Wednesday, Russia is guaranteed two players in the semi-finals and could have both finalists.