Novak Djokovic won the master tournament of Cincinnati, which was played once in New York. At Flushing Meadows the Serbian beat the surprising finalist Milos Raonic: 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Raonic was world number three in November 2016 and in that year experienced the best season of his career to date, with a final at Wimbledon and a semifinal at the Australian Open.
Dropped in world ranking
The 29-year-old Canadian has dropped to a thirtieth place in the world ranking due to injury and a lack of confidence.
Few people in New York took into account the Montenegrin-born service cannon. The fact that Raonic visibly arrived at the tournament with some excess weight did not help either.
But it was precisely this low expectation pattern that worked in favor of Raonic, who produced ace after ace in the tournament as usual, visibly turned away his reticence and silenced his critics.
Djokovic had fought his way out of a rather hopeless position to win against Bautista Agut one lap earlier and now showed his winning mentality again. Raonic came 2-0 in the decisive third set, but once again Djokovic showed himself to be a true breakaway artist. After he came alongside, he didn’t give up the initiative anymore. The world’s number one grip in New York his 35th master title and thus comes on par with record holder Rafael Nadal. Roger Federer is the number three on the list of 28 master titles.Djokovic retrieves Nadal