Most shocking Djokovic defeat at Slam

Most shocking Djokovic defeat at Slam?

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rUDin 21

rUDin 21

Hall of Fame
One of these five losses was most shocking for Djokovic fans,which one?

I'm not counting finals and losses to Rafa Roger and Andy here.

RG 2018 QF
Cecchinato 6 7 1 7
Djokovic 3 6 6 6

AO 2017 2R
Istomin 7 5 2 7 6
Djokovic 6 7 6 6 4

USO 2014 SF
Nishikori 6 1 7 6
Djokovic 3 6 6 4

W 2016 3R
Querrey 7 6 3 7
Djokovic 6 1 6 6

AO 2014 QF
Wawrinka 2 6 6 3 9
Djokovic 6 4 2 6 7
 
For me following it live - Querrey for sure. I thought he was playing nearly unbeatable tennis during the NCYGS and he’d try to win 5 in a row. Also as an American I have quite a dim view of our players. It definitely “felt” the most surprising watching it.

Istomin and Nishikori probably behind that.

Cecchinato/Chung was at a point in his career when I was accustomed to him being complete crap, by 2018 post elbow surgery I knew it would be a long way back - so while surprising they weren’t utter shocks. Wasn’t on TTW so didn’t have the benefit of Checkmate’s insights though

‘14 Wawrinka doesn’t belong on this list at all, I think pretty much anyone who saw their match the previous year knew it would be 50-50 and Stan could win.
 
None. Wawrinka 2019 US Open. Injury came out of nowhere, he was getting destroyed. Such a weird outcome that shocked me the most personally.

Out of that list, Cecchinato didn’t surprise me at all, Istomin didn’t surprise me either (dude was in a complete tail spin after the Toronto 2016 win). Wawrinka wasn’t a surprise either, he pushed him to 5 sets in the last two slam meetings so it would be unfair to label Wawrinka a true “dark horse” when he definitely could’ve won.

Querrey was a big surprise since his form was great and nobody could see it coming. Nishikori was also a surprise considering he didn’t even put up a fight in the final.
 
Nishikori for me. Everyone was expecting a Fedovic final and somehow, Kei took out Novak

Chung/Cecchinato were during moments where he wasn't that good anyways, Querrey came after he won Nole Slam so eventually he was gonna lose again at a major, and Stan we all knew what he was capable of doing after 2013.

Istomin is the very close second here but his form coming into the AO in the many months leading up to it was not great so we all knew he was vulnerable.
 
Entername said:
Nishikori for me. Everyone was expecting a Fedovic final and somehow, Kei took out Novak

Chung/Cecchinato were during moments where he wasn't that good anyways, Querrey came after he won Nole Slam so eventually he was gonna lose again at a major, and Stan we all knew what he was capable of doing after 2013.

Istomin is the very close second here but his form coming into the AO in the many months leading up to it was not great so we all knew he was vulnerable.
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And then Cilic took out Federer. That was such a strange day. :giggle:
 
StrongRule said:
And then Cilic took out Federer. That was such a strange day. :giggle:
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This was actually more shocking.

Once Novak was out, Fed know the title was his to lose.

From the list, Nishikori was the most surprising to me. He was in great form in 2014 having played the FO final and won the Wimbledon against Fed. Losing to Nishikori in a Slam SF is shocking.

I always find Novak little rusty in the 1st week of a slam so an early exit is not really shocking.
 
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How can it not be the Querrey loss? He was on fire from the start of 2015 until that match playing BOAT-level tennis, winning 5 out of 6 Slams and just about every other tournament he played. No one saw that coming.
 
rUDin 21 said:
One of these five losses was most shocking for Djokovic fans,which one?

I'm not counting finals and losses to Rafa Roger and Andy here.

RG 2018 QF
Cecchinato 6 7 1 7
Djokovic 3 6 6 6

AO 2017 2R
Istomin 7 5 2 7 6
Djokovic 6 7 6 6 4

USO 2014 SF
Nishikori 6 1 7 6
Djokovic 3 6 6 4

W 2016 3R
Querrey 7 6 3 7
Djokovic 6 1 6 6

AO 2014 QF
Wawrinka 2 6 6 3 9
Djokovic 6 4 2 6 7
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Nishikori 2014 without a shadow of a doubt. The Ninja before & after that match had always been Nole's punching bag, and it wasn't like he was in some world beating superhuman form coming into the clash with Nole in the semis, had an exhausting match or two before that as well. Given all this, his glassy body & Djokovic being the boss in matchup, almost nobody except for the almighty God saw this upset coming.
 
Kralingen said:
For me following it live - Querrey for sure. I thought he was playing nearly unbeatable tennis during the NCYGS and he’d try to win 5 in a row. Also as an American I have quite a dim view of our players. It definitely “felt” the most surprising watching it.

Istomin and Nishikori probably behind that.

Cecchinato/Chung was at a point in his career when I was accustomed to him being complete crap, by 2018 post elbow surgery I knew it would be a long way back - so while surprising they weren’t utter shocks. Wasn’t on TTW so didn’t have the benefit of Checkmate’s insights though

‘14 Wawrinka doesn’t belong on this list at all, I think pretty much anyone who saw their match the previous year knew it would be 50-50 and Stan could win.
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For me it's Istomin. Djokovic was always vulnerable at Wimbledon (at least until after the Nadal win, he's been dominant since).
He was down 2 sets against Anderson the previous year and it wouldn't have shocked me too hard if he had lost that one.

AO has always been a different story.
 
Nishikori 2014 followed very closely by Istomin 2017.

From memory, it was a brutally hot day when Djokovic lost to Nishikori in the Big Apple, everyone was already pencilling in a Djokovic vs Federer final (myself included), instead we had Nishikori vs Cilic which noone could have ever predicted, #10 vs #14 in a slam final?!

Djokovic had won Doha in 2017 just 1-2 weeks before Aus Open began and noone expected him to falter in the early rounds of the Aus Open where he was a 6-time champion at that point in time and he'd made the 2nd week there every year between 2007 and 2016.
 
Istomin.

He was getting a bit of traction with the YEC final and Doha title, I was 99% he was just gonna turn the match against Istomin and then he ended up losing. At AO of all places.

That loss broke him completely, his results in 2017 were much worse than Canada-YEC in 2016 afterwards.
 
Definitely Istomin for me. Notably it was the only one of these that he was actually ahead in when the 4th set began, plus it was his favorite tournament in the calendar.

It was a shaky first set, then it felt like he shook it off in the 2nd (it was a little iffy, but manageable) then a pretty strong 3rd set. He was a set away, had 2 more to go. Looked like he was holding pretty well, and Istomin was having a ton of trouble holding. Even with the iffy 4th set, it always felt like he was about to up his game to finish off the set but never did. The 5th came around and Djokovic just wasn't able to get into Istomin's service games anymore.

It felt like he just stopped playing tennis there. Istomin was fairly good, but Djokovic just started playing poorly for stretches and then just gave away the last set. It was bizarre, and at that point you could really tell he didn't shake off the malaise of W2016. It was the thing that really showed Novak wouldn't be back at top level for a while.
 
Sam Querrey.

Djokovic owned everything heading into Wimbledon 2016, he had all the slams, finally completed the career slam, ahd the WTF, ruled with an iron fist at the top, and then loses to Sam in the third round. Just came out of nowhere.
 
Djokovic’s loss to Istomin in the 2nd round of the AO.
He just came off of a win at Doha. I’m pretty sure he wins the AO assuming he won the 5th set against Istomin.
 
Nishikori for me. All the other defeats kinda make sense in hindsight when you know why they happened, but the loss to Nishikori makes no sense.

Fabresque said:
None. Wawrinka 2019 US Open. Injury came out of nowhere, he was getting destroyed. Such a weird outcome that shocked me the most personally.

Out of that list, Cecchinato didn’t surprise me at all, Istomin didn’t surprise me either (dude was in a complete tail spin after the Toronto 2016 win). Wawrinka wasn’t a surprise either, he pushed him to 5 sets in the last two slam meetings so it would be unfair to label Wawrinka a true “dark horse” when he definitely could’ve won.

Querrey was a big surprise since his form was great and nobody could see it coming. Nishikori was also a surprise considering he didn’t even put up a fight in the final.
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What ? He was already injured in the earlier rounds.
 
Those voting for Nishikori must be trolling. The Japanese player is a Olympic bronze medalist and former #4. It's ridiculous to compare a solid player like him with "nobodies" such as Istomin (?) or Cecchinato (?). I know Djokovic was in the middle of a game crisis in half 2018, but he had reached the Rome 2018 SF and was not expected to lose to Cecchinato. Even more obvious is the case of Istomin. In January 2017 no one knew Djokovic was starting to have his crisis. He just won 2 Slams in 2016, reached the USO 2016 final and had just won Doha 2017. No one could have predicted the AO King was would lose against a virtually unknown player such as Istomin.
 
socallefty said:
How can it not be the Querrey loss? He was on fire from the start of 2015 until that match playing BOAT-level tennis, winning 5 out of 6 Slams and just about every other tournament he played. No one saw that coming.
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This lady was pleasantly surprised: ;)

ConcreteFluffyBison-max-1mb.gif
 
rUDin 21 said:
Loss to Chung wasn't very surprising to me, it was his first tournament since Wimbledon 2017 after the injury so he was rusty and was there for the taking.
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I know, but... Chung - perhaps in hindsight it's not surprising, since Novak took time finding his level again, but at the time, I was shocked.

More surprising for me than Stan in AO14; there was a Wawrinka win in the air after AO13 and US13. But that was perhaps my feelings as a pretty big fan of Stan's :)
 
I'd say Querrey. The Istomin loss was pretty shocking too (and probably takes second) but I wasn't sure about Novak's form heading into AO because I was thoroughly unconvinced by his performance in Doha (which was clearly worse than his form even in the latter part of 2016 for a large majority of the tournament imo) with the exception of the Murray match. Some really shaky performances throughout that event when I really thought the new year might signal a return to something resembling Novak's early 2016 form (probably wishful thinking I know but still). His weight of shot looked like it had simply collapsed in the space of a year since the previous edition (the Verdasco match was particularly bad in this regard from what I remember). By now I've come to terms with the fact that Novak simply can't do some of the things that he used to on a tennis court and he's had to adapt his game as a result, but at the time seeing that level of decline in certain facets of his game was pretty jarring. He really went from absolute peak performance to lightweight Oldovic in the space of a year if you watch those two runs back to back.

Meanwhile in 2016 I really didn't envisage anyone apart from Murray remotely challenging him at Wimbledon, even accounting for a bit of a comedown after the culmination of his life's work at RG. I thought he'd win Wimbledon on pure momentum alone.
 
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junior74 said:
I know, but... Chung - perhaps in hindsight it's not surprising, since Novak took time finding his level again, but at the time, I was shocked.

More surprising for me than Stan in AO14; there was a Wawrinka win in the air after AO13 and US13. But that was perhaps my feelings as a pretty big fan of Stan's :)
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Djokovic at AO 2014 was coming into match against Wawrinka with 28 match winning streak(13-14) and 25 winning streak at AO(11-13)
He won 4 straight tournaments between USO 13 and AO 14 beating Nadal twice in Finals.
Beijing Shanghai Paris and London titles+DC final.
 
rUDin 21 said:
Djokovic at AO 2014 was coming into match against Wawrinka with 28 match winning streak(13-14) and 25 winning streak at AO(11-13)
He won 4 straight tournaments between USO 13 and AO 14 beating Nadal twice in Finals.
Beijing Shanghai Paris and London titles+DC final.
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Yes, I was talking about the rivalry between the two. Novak was not going to keep winning close 5 setters against Stan forever.

I think he was on a 28 streak at RG15, too. Perhaps it's a lucky number?
 
junior74 said:
Yes, I was talking about the rivalry between the two. Novak was not going to keep winning close 5 setters against Stan forever.

I think he was on a 28 streak at RG15, too. Perhaps it's a lucky number?
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Agreed.It was only a matter of time before he would finally win one but i hoped not to be at AO.
Still Novak won next year again in five.
 
Istomin. He’s simply in that category of player that the Big 3 should NEVER really lose to, even if injured or off their game. Similar to Stakhovsky beating Fed at Wimbledon. Just should never have happened but it did.
 
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