Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz had wildly different days at the US Open.
Djokovic continues to cement his greatest of all-time status with yet another astonishing record, while Alcaraz crashed out of the tournament.
The Spaniard crashed out in the second round in one of the biggest shocks of all time when he lost to Botic van De Zandschulp.
The world number three came into the tournament in New York aiming to make it three grand slams in a row, having triumphed at the French Open and Wimbledon.
World number 74 Van De Zandschulp produced the result of his life to win 6-1 7-5 6-4 in front of a stunned US Open crowd.
Alcaraz said: “It was a fight against myself, in my mind during the match.
“In tennis, you are playing against someone that wants the same as you, to win the match, and you have to be as calm as you can just to think better in the match and try to do good things.
“Today I was playing against the opponent, and I was playing against myself. I mean, I had a lot of emotions that I couldn’t control.
“The tennis schedule is so tight. I’ve been playing a lot of matches lately, you know, with Roland Garros, with Wimbledon, Olympic Games.
“I took a little break after the Olympic Games. I thought it was enough. It was really helpful for me. Probably it wasn’t enough.”
Djokovic, however, sailed through to the second round at Flushing Meadow after Laslo Djere retired 6-4, 6-4, 2-0 due to injury.
This was his 90th win at the US Open – meaning he is the only player EVER to have 90 wins or more at each Grand Slam.
He was already the only player to ever have 80 wins at each of them.
Djokovic also joins an elite list alongside three other people to have 90 wins or more at the US Open.
Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert and Serena Williams had 98, 101 and 108 win respectively at the tournament.
Djokovic was far from happy with his performance, however.
He said: “You know, in the end not the kind of finish that we players or crowd wants to see, but I think it’s probably due to that physical battle that we had in the opening two sets.
“All in all, of course, I have to be happy with the win and happy that in important moments I managed to play one ball more than him over the net, and I guess find the right shots or anticipate well as I did in the set point in the second set.
“I was lucky that he missed that forehand. It was quite easy forehand. But, you know, that’s tennis when you are fighting and playing long rallies, and the pressure mounts when you have that important point that you have to play the shots that normally nine out of ten you wouldn’t miss, and then you miss.”
Djokovic will face No. 28-seeded Alexei Popyrin in the next round.
