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Victor Petkov
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Djokovic prevails Shelton to reach US Open final once again
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The Serbian upset his American opponent with a straight 3-0 win after dramatic third set

Novak Djokovic took another step towards his goal in New York – the title of the US Open 2023. The world No. 2, who will be leading the ATP ranking starting from next week, defeated Ben Shelton 3-0 (6:3; 6:2; 7:6(4) ) in a little over 2:40 hours of play.

The first set was pretty equal up until the sixth game when Ben Shelton hit his first difficult moment and Djokovic broke him to take a 4:2 lead. Winning his service game afterwards, the Serbian let Shelton serve to stay in the set. The America had difficulties once again, but managed to save four consecutive set balls and win the game from being 0:40 down.


Djokovic, though, finished the job in his service game to close the set 6:3. In the second part the story was pretty much the same. This time Shelton conceded a break in the fifth game and another in the seventh before Djokovic won  6-2.

The third set was more interesting, although Djokovic took another break lead from the first game. Since then Nole was comfortably controlling the tempo and the game until the eight game where he had hi first major decrease in form and Shelton took advantage of his first break point of the set to level 4:4.

Shelton was surfing on the crest of the winning wave in the next game and won it to make Djokovic serve to save the set. He had to save new break point and managed to win the game before Shelton to lose total control of his and practically gifting Djokovic a 6:5 lead, but the Serbian didn’t take his chance and the set had to be decided by a tiebreak where Djokovic had the cooler head and won it 7:4.

In the final on Sunday, Djokovic will face the winner from the second semifinal where Carlos Alcaraz will face Daniil Medvedev.