Novak Djokovic battled injury and fatigue to survive another near five-hour, five-set French Open thriller with a 6-1 5-7 3-6 7-5 6-3 victory over Francisco Cerundolo on Monday. The 37-year-old tweaked his knee and received four medical timeouts for the problem, but despite his movement being hampered, Djokovic refused to surrender, and he battled back from two sets to one down and 2-4 in the fourth set to make the last eight in Paris for the 15th consecutive time. The Serb, who is chasing a record-extending 25th Grand Slam title, sealed his 370th match victory to move clear of Swiss great Roger Federer.
A post shared by Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) It is the first time since the 2012 French Open that Djokovic has played back to back five-setters at a Grand Slam (Andreas Seppi, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga) The only other time before then was also in 2012 at the Australian Open (those epics against Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal) "Again a big thank you because once again like the last match, the win is your win," an exhausted Djokovic told the crowd in fluent French. The 37-year-old showed no early signs of fatigue from his marathon third-round win over Lorenzo Musetti, another near five-hour epic that ended in the early hours of Sunday morning, as he blitzed clay specialist Cerundolo in the opening set. Djokovic sustained a right knee issue early in the next and needed treatment on court.
He was heard telling the physio: "I screwed up my knee. I'm slipping and sliding all the time." Fo.