Tennis • Perspective

Novak Djokovic was after tennis history. Then he collided with the sport’s future.

By Sally Jenkins
Columnist
Yesterday at 9:35 p.m. EDT

NEW YORK — Daniil Medvedev doesn’t have an immediately identifiable strength, the big stroke that forces a shout. Nevertheless, the strength is there, in a lean-boned, peculiar and bristling player who took down Novak Djokovic with such dispatch in the final of the U.S. Open that it snatched the air from the throats of a crowd roaring to see history made.

Relieved defenders of the record books will focus on Djokovic’s failure to make history by completing the first men’s Grand Slam in 52 years and the fact that his two greatest rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, were absent with injuries. But that denies Medvedev full credit for turning the men’s final Sunday night into such a stunning non-drama, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, and sending the game of tennis into a whole new day. He’s Ichabod-skinny at 6-foot-6, with the curled shoulders and mind of a chess player, but Medvedev has wedged his way in among the top players with a shocking insistence, and the next No. 1 may just be here.

Before this tournament ever began, Medvedev was asked about the prospect of stopping Djokovic from winning a Grand Slam and thus breaking his dead heat with Federer and Nadal at 20 majors each.

“Yeah, well, since I’m here, I want to say I’m going to try my best to keep it at 20 for all of them,” Medvedev replied. He added, “I don’t care if it’s in the final against a qualifier or against Novak. I just want to win this tournament.”

[Daniil Medvedev ends Novak Djokovic’s quest for a Grand Slam with win in U.S. Open men’s final]

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By Sally Jenkins
Sally Jenkins is a sports columnist for The Washington Post. She began her second stint at The Washington Post in 2000 after spending the previous decade working as a book author and as a magazine writer.