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Novak Djokovic

, helpless. Novak Djokovic, desperate. Novak Djokovic, defeated. He had rarely seen himself like this this season, less in these Tokyo Games that seemed made for him. In his journey to gold he only had one long stop, this Friday in the semifinals against

Alexander Zverev

and in it he was surprised (1-6, 6-3 and 6-1 in two hours). His defeat was not so unexpected by the rival -the German is fifth in the world ranking-, as by the manners: suddenly, he disconnected. In the first hour it was Novak Djokovic, you already know him; in the second it was another tennis player. In the middle of the collapse, he screamed at his coaching staff looking for explanations, but the only possible explanation was in him.

After the defeat, Djokovic will play this Saturday the fight for the Olympic bronze against

Pablo Carreño

, a reward that he will fight for patriotism, but which is far from his initial goal.

The Golden Slam, that full of great titles for which he was launched after winning the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon, is no longer possible.

Zverev celebrates his victory against Djokovic in Tokyo.AFP

Only he can explain what happened between his excellent first set and his disastrous third set.

At that start, although he never showed the brilliance of other occasions, he landed several winners and maintained a remarkable service, enough weapons to defeat this year's declining Zverev.

But later the roles were exchanged.

The German started playing like he hadn't been seen since the last US Open and Djokovic just fell apart.

Probably tired of all the demands of this course, he slowed down his serve a lot and lost all exchanges with Zverev, fresher, more accurate.

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