Novak Djokovic booed after retiring from Australian Open semifinal match with injury
2025-01-24
Category: sports

The Melbourne, Austrailia, crowd was not kind to Novak Djokovic early Friday morning. In his quest to extend his record with a 25th grand slam, Djokovic only managed to play one set, withdrawing from his Australian Open semifinal match after tearing a muscle in his left leg. The withdrawal sent Alexander Zverev to Sunday's final against Jannick Sinner, and it left the crowd disappointed. CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM  After he conceded the match to Zverev, who won the set, fans booed him as he walked off toward the locker room. Djokovic stopped, turned around and responded by giving two thumbs-up. Zverev made his disappointment with the crowd known. "Don’t boo a player when he goes out with injury. I know that everybody paid for tickets and everybody wants to see a great five-set match, but you gotta understand Novak Djokovic is somebody that has given this sport for the past 20 years absolutely everything of his life," Zverev said in his on-court interview.  "He has won this tournament with an abdominal tear. He has won this tournament with a hamstring tear. If he can’t continue a tennis match, it really means he can’t continue a tennis match. So, please be respectful."  AMERICAN TENNIS STAR BEN SHELTON PUTS AUSTRALIAN OPEN TV INTERVIEWERS ON BLAST OVER TREATMENT OF PLAYERS John McEnroe added on the call, "They can't possibly be booing him. Please! He's won this 10 times, for god's sakes. Unreal… "I mean, clearly something was up. The guy is a battler. I mean, him and Rafa [Nadal] have dug deeper than any two players I have seen. So to do that because he decided that he couldn't go on after what he's done here I thought was absolutely ludicrous, honestly. That was almost as depressing as seeing the end of the match." Djokovic suffered the injury during his five-set classic with Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinal, but he said the pain was getting "worse and worse." "Towards the end of that first set, I just started feeling more and more pain, and it was too much to handle for me at the moment. So, yeah, unfortunate ending, but I tried," Djokovic said. "I knew even if I won the first set, it was going to be a huge uphill battle for me." He withdrew from last year’s French Open before the quarterfinals after tearing the meniscus in his right knee during a match. Djokovic had surgery a couple of days later and immediately reached the final at the following major, Wimbledon, then won a gold medal for Serbia at the Paris Olympics.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP This will be Zverev's first final at the Australian Open and the third final of his career. He also made last year's French Open final as well as the 2020 U.S. Open. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow Fox News Digital’s&nbsp;sports coverage on X,&nbsp;and subscribe to&nbsp;the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.