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New Delhi: Revenge fuels Carlos Alcaraz as he is poised to renew rivalry with Novak Djokovic in a chartbuster semi-final at the US Open on Friday.
Djokovic is aiming for a record 25th Grand Slam but has been beaten in semi-finals of the majors three times in a row in 2025.
Alcaraz is not only keen to reach his first hard-court Grand Slam final since 2023, but also reclaim the top spot in the ATP Rankings for the first time in two years.
The Spaniard emerged second best to the Serb in their last two meetings - going down in four sets in the Australian Open quarter-final in January and in the gold medal match at the Paris Olympics last year.
“Novak, we all know Novak's game… It doesn't matter that he has been out of the Tour since Wimbledon. [He’s] playing great matches here. I know he's hungry. I know his ambition for more, so let's see. I know I played a lot of times against him. I really want revenge. That's obvious,” Alcaraz said, as quoted by atptour.com.
The 22-year-old Alcaraz is on an 11-match winning streak after winning the title at Cincinnati and he leapfrog Jannik Sinner back to World No. 1 spot if he matches or betters the Italian’s result in New York.
Djokovic leads Alcaraz 5-3 in head-to-head battles so far.
The 38-year-old Djokovic has navigated fitness concerns throughout his campaign so far but he produced a strong display to beat Jan-Lennard Struff in the fourth round and then outslug last year's runners-up Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals.
But his ageing body has been in focus, and it lingers on since Djokovic admitted that he was ‘the most concerned [he’d] ever been’ after his third round victory.
“The next couple of days is really key for me to really get my body in shape and ready to battle five sets if it's needed. would love to be fit enough to play and to play potentially five sets with Carlos,” he said.
“I know that my best tennis is going to be required, but I'd rise to the occasion. Normally I like to play the big matches on a big stage. It's just that I'm not really sure how the body is going to feel in the next few days," Djokovic added.
"But I'm going to do my very best with my team to be fit for that. There's going to be a lot of running involved, that's for sure. It's not going to be short points.”
