The Big Three is down to one and that last man standing is showing no signs of sitting down.
Novak Djokovic of Serbia caps his Grand Slam season in New York on Sunday afternoon, playing in the U.S. Open final after title-match appearances in the previous three majors of 2023.
Djokovic, still in top form at the ancient tennis age of 36, faces Daniil Medvedev, 27, at Arthur Ashe Stadium a little after 4 p.m.
Djokovic dispatched American Ben Shelton in straight sets Friday, extending the U.S. men’s drought in Flushing Meadows. An American man hasn’t won the U.S. Open singles title since Andy Roddick’s triumph in 2003, eight years before Djokovic won his first trophy in Queens in 2011.
Medvedev stunned world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz on Friday to punch his ticket to the final.
Medvedev comes into match as the underdog to Djokovic, who won this year’s Australian and French Opens and lost an epic five-set, championship battle to Alcaraz at Wimbledon.
That French Open title was the 23rd major singles title for Djokovic, breaking a tie with long-time rival Rafael Nadal, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles.
Throughout Djokovic’s long career, his name regularly appeared in the same sentence with 20-time major winner Roger Federer and Nadal.
Federer retired last year from major competition and Nadal could be hanging it up shortly.
Sunday’s championship title match will be played in warm, but not brutal conditions like have plagued this year’s U.S. Open. It should be in the high 70s when the first ball is served in Queens.
This men’s title match will be televised by ESPN, which might leave out millions of Spectrum TV subscribers.
ESPN and other Disney properties were pulled from Charter Communication’s Spectrum on Aug. 24 in an ongoing carriage fee dispute. The Disney channels were still off of Spectrum on Sunday afternoon.
Customers with the nation’s second biggest cable provider, which has a sizable share of the New York and Los Angeles markets, have been denied ABC programming and a host of sports on ESPN platforms.