As Novak Djokovic walks out injured from Australian Open semifinal, Alexander Zverev condemns booing crowd: ‘If he can’t continue…’ | Tennis News

Alexander Zverev reached his third Grand Slam final under the most extraordinary of circumstances on Friday as 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic retired at the Australian Open semifinal. The Serb decided to call off the match as he hit the volley into the net with Zverev on set point, leaving the court injured after losing the first set 7-6(5).
After losing the set, he promptly informed Zverev that he could not go on and shook hands with the chair umpire before exiting, and there were some boos from the crowd mixed with the cheers for one of the all-time greats who had won this Slam 10 times in the past. And Zverev, who has said in the past there is no one he respects more on tour than Djokovic, didn’t take kindly to those who jeered the former world No 1 off the court.
Djokovic, who was walking off the court with his arms raised initially in acknowledgment of the fans, then stopped to seemingly give a double thumbs-up in a sarcastic fashion as he heard the boos.
“The very first thing I want to say is, please guys, don’t boo a player when he goes out with injury,” Zverev said in his on-court interview as immediately there was a round of applause from the stands. “I know that everybody paid for tickets and wants to see hopefully a great five-set match. But you got to understand Novak Djokovic is someone who has given to the sport over the past 20 years, absolutely everything of his life,” the German added, to more applause. “He has won this tournament with an abdominal tear, won this tournament with a hamstring injury. So if he cannot continue a tennis match, it really means he cannot continue a tennis match. So please be respectful and really, show some love for Novak as well.” That was followed some more cheering as former world No 1 Jim Courier, conducting the interview added, “That’s well said.”

🤯 @alexzverev claims an extraordinary first set – and ultimately the match.
Having battled through the set, @djokernole has been forced to retire due to injury.@wwos • @espn • @eurosport • @wowowtennis • #AusOpen • #AO2025 pic.twitter.com/uH2iiLJaVC
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 24, 2025
Later in the interview, Zverev also remarked that he thought the first set still witnessed a really high level of tennis, but he could see Djokovic’s movement was hampered during the tiebreak. Djokovic had also said after his epic quarterfinal win against Carlos Alcaraz that he might not have continued playing in that match had he lost the second set to go down 0-2.
As an interesting aside, according to Opta, Zverev now becomes only the second male player in the Open Era to win and lose a Grand Slam semi-final via retirement, after Rafael Nadal. Zverev had to pull out of Roland Garros 2022 semifinal against Nadal after a horrific fall on court.

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