Davis Cup: Novak Djokovic’s Season Ended With Serbia Struck By Croatia

In a showdown in the middle of the world’s best player and duo pair, Croatia’s top-ranked beat a Serbia team led by Novak Djokovic to give their country into the Davis Cup final.

Novak Djokovic’s vision of scoring a second Davis Cup to his 20 Grand Slam trophies was destroyed on Friday when Serbia were beaten by Croatia in the semi-finals. Djokovic and ally Filip Krajinovic fell 7-5, 6-1 to top-ranked players Pavic and Nikola Mektic, the Olympic and Wimbledon winners, in the final doubles stamp. Croatia, in the 2005 and 2018 Davis Cup champions, will go against either Russia or Germany in Sunday’s final.

Djokovic had briefly taken down Marin Cilic for the 18th time to hold Serbia stirring. The world number one, winning in singles in the competition since 2011, succeed 6-4, 6-2 to pull Serbia’s level at 1-1 in the tie. It was his 19th consecutive Davis Cup singles triumph.

In the opening, Borna Gojo placed a humble 279, picked off a shock victory over world number 33 Dusan Lajovic, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Failure for Serbia intended Djokovic ending his 2021 season having agonizingly dropped out on the first time Grand Slam by a male player in more than half a century when he lost the final of the US Open.

Achieving a magnificent season that included three Grand Slam victories, Djokovic said Serbia must learn from the loss if it hopes to win the Davis Cup again.

“As much as it hurts, these moments are usually the best to develop and grow into a better person and player, and hopefully we will learn from what happened this year,” Djokovic said. “We definitely need to have a doubles team playing constantly together or it will be an Everest for us to climb.”