{"id":168565,"date":"2025-01-21T15:23:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T14:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=168565"},"modified":"2025-01-23T09:36:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T08:36:36","slug":"brilliant-novak-beats-alcaraz-to-reach-australian-open-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/brilliant-novak-beats-alcaraz-to-reach-australian-open-semis\/","title":{"rendered":"Brilliant Novak beats Alcaraz to reach Australian Open semis!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nole produced a spectacular comeback to reach the Australian Open semi-final for 12th time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak Djokovic beat Carlos Alcaraz in the <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Australian Open<\/a> quarter-finals 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 at Melbourne Park on Tuesday night.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Serbian star prevailed in a thrilling four-set encounter against the Spaniard in three hours and 37 minutes.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wKxqwTLkkAM?si=rO1VfMPzOXlyj5Gu\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Novak, who added Andy Murray to his coaching team at the start of the season, matched Alcaraz in terms of court coverage and power. Though he was down a set and dealing with an upper leg injury, the seventh seed regrouped and turned the momentum in his favour to take the next three sets, breaking the third-seeded opponent six times to improve to a 5-3 record in their ATP H2H series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cOne of the most epic matches I\u2019ve played on this court, any court really,\u201d<\/strong> Novak said after the win. <strong>\u201cAfter the first set I started to feel and move better, managed to play a great couple of games to end the second set, and then I saw that Carlos was hesitant from the back of the court and I took my chances. I guess the key is recovery for me now. That\u2019s all I\u2019m thinking about. The extra day with no match comes at the perfect time for me. Hopefully I can come out in the semifinals and feel my best.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (5-10), double faults (3-5), winners (31-50), unforced errors (27-40), total points won (135-126).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak will face German second seed Alexander Zverev (8-4 H2H) on Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic is bidding to win his 25th Major title and 100th career trophy.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novak beat Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 in three hours and 37 minutes. The 10-time Australian Open champion is through to his 50th Grand Slam semi-final. He will face German second seed Alexander Zverev (8-4 H2H) on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":168562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101011992,101013451,101013238,101011740,101011403],"class_list":["post-168565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australia","tag-australian-open-2025-en","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-grand-slam","tag-quarterfinal-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168565"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168585,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168565\/revisions\/168585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}