Australia’s John Millman was broken early in the first set but kept fighting to stretch the opening set out to an hour.
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(Photo by Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
At 2-1 in the second Novak Djokovic was getting agitated with his box. He appeared to be not happy about his drink service.
At other points leading up to this moment, Djokovic looked at times to be unsteady on his feet as the humid conditions took their hold on the players.
At 2-2 in the second set Millman asked to change his full outfit, socks included. As Millman went off court Djokovic found time to gather himself and rest from the oppressive conditions.
After the clothing break, Djokovic appeared refreshed and powered his way to 6-3, 6-4 lead.
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In the third set Djokovic had break point to go up two breaks of serve. He failed to convert and then in the next game was given a warning for exceeding the serve clock time. He then seemed to allow the clock to expire again on purpose to result in a fault. Djokovic was then serving a second serve with a break point against him.
Millman took the break to level things up at 3-3. From here Djokovic was playing with more purpose and control and applied relentless pressure on Millman to force a break at 4-4.
Djokovic was then stepping up to serve at 5-4 for a spot in his 11th straight US Open semifinal. The Serbian got the job done and signed off with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
In the on-court interview that followed Djokovic said “Very tested, over three hours, it’s midnight now. Credit to John for putting up a great battle, he is truely a great fighter. He has had an amazing tournament, his first quarterfinals and he won against Roger (Federer) a couple of nights ago… to come out after that kind of win and fight for three hours he deserves a round of applause,” when asked how he was tested tonight.
