Tennis News: Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner and Nick Kyrgios

Novak Djokovic is through into the second round of the 2024 US Open with an easy victory over Radu Albot 6-2 6-2 6-4. Next for Djokovic is fellow Serb, Laslo Djere. Djere gave Djokovic an extremely difficult time in the 2023 US Open as Djokovic had to win in five sets.

By defeating Albot, though, the Serb broke a fairly random record, but one that could only be accomplished by being highly successful over a long period of time. Djokovic won his 78th career match on Arthur Ashe Stadium, the most ever for a men's player.

The record for wins at the tournament by a men's player is 98. Jimmy Connors holds that mark. Djokovic currently has 89 victories at the event and if he goes on to win the title again, he will come close to Connors' number but would still need five more wins next year to eclipse the mark. One might doubt, with all the records the Serb has already broken, if he can keep all of them in his head, though.

Novak Djokovic breaks another record and Nick Kyrgios can't quit Jannik Sinner

As for Nick Kyrgios, he cannot seem to get Jannik Sinner out of his head. Sinner, the ATP No. 1, twice tested positive in March for a banned substance. After a review by the International Tennis Integrity Agency, the Italian was found to have done nothing intentionally wrong. He was not suspended, although players in the same kind of situation, such as Simona Halep, were almost immediately suspended from the sport.

Kyrgios found the way Sinner was treated to be inconsistent with how tennis normally does its business and said Sinner should have been suspended for two years until he could prove his innocence otherwise. Part of the issue with Kyrgios' take was that he was inaccurate as far as how long the substance found in Sinner's system, clostebol, stays in one's body.

Kyrgios thinks the substance is gone after only a few hours. In reality, the substance can be in one's system for many days. During a recent discussion with ESPN, Kyrgios doubled down on his criticism of the Sinner situation.

He said, "We’ve seen players like Halep and everyone and it seems like every time one of these things comes up, there’s always a different process for different players. It’s nothing against Sinner personally at all...He’s one of the greatest tennis players we have right now...Someone like Sinner just kind of doing it his own kind of way. I think he had it on his own terms for most of the time. I don’t think that’s fair and equal for the rest of the tour."

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