Second seed Novak Djokovic will face fellow Serbian Laslo Djere in the third round of the 2023 US Open. The match will be played on Friday, September 1, 2023.
Novak Djokovic has completed one-half of his objective this fortnight – which is to reclaim the No. 1 ranking from Carlos Alcaraz. Now the Serbian machine will attempt to go all the way to the final Sunday and win a fourth US Open title. Despite his unwavering dominance on hard courts, it’s quite a mystery that he’s not been able to solve the puzzle in New York, losing in six of the nine finals he has played in down the years. But before he can get too far ahead of himself, he’ll need to navigate his way into the second week, by beating in-form countryman Laslo Djere.
Laslo Djere, meanwhile, has reached the third round of the US Open for the first time. The 28-year-old dismissed reigning Next Gen ATP champion Brandon Nakashima in his opening match, winning that one as a heavy underdog (+195). Djere then backed up that result by eliminating French qualifier Hugo Gaston. He did not relinquish a set in both matches. He has now won four of his past six matches on hard courts, and 13 of his last 19 matches overall since the start of July.
Novak Djokovic and Laslo Djere hail from Serbia and the two maintain a cordial relationship on Tour as opponents and as teammates in Davis Cup competitions. They are scheduled to team up together later this month when Serbia will play in the Davis Cup qualifiers. Djokovic has spoken highly of his countryman in the build-up to this match and acknowledged the tough bout they played at the Belgrade Open last year where Djokovic came from a set down to win. That remains their only head-to-head meeting and I don’t think it’s a good barometer to make any conclusions for this match. Obviously, Djokovic is the strong favorite here having dropped a combined 11 games in two matches. Djere, however, has some momentum going and is a vastly superior opponent than Muller and Zapata Miralles whom Djokovic dismissed with ease. We can see the 28-year-old covering his total games (Djere – over 9.5 games in the match) in a tight straight-sets defeat.