Tanking is the term when players deliberately choose not to focus energy or attention on a specific set.
Novak Djokovic (Photo: AFP)
Defending French Open champion Novak Djokovic has been accused of tanking the last set of his quarter-final against Dominic Thiem by tennis great John McEnroe.
Commenting on the match, McEnroe said he was absolutely baffled by what he saw and was not impressed at all by Djokovic's performance.
Tanking is the tennis term when players deliberately choose not to focus energy or attention on a specific set.
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"It looks right now as if Djokovic doesn't want to be on the court. This is tank city. I'm very surprised — especially with the way how it ended. That last set was really strange," McEnroe said.
Djokovic squandered two set points in the opening set. The 23-year-old Thiem won 7-6(5), 6-3, 6-0.
His error-strewn display shocked Greg Rusedski too, who was appearing in the Eurosport studio.
He said: "When have you seen Djokovic lose 0-6 in a Grand Slam quarter-final? There are question marks for me over where's Novak — especially after that performance."
Djokovic has not been at his best for a while now, winning just two titles in the last 12 months, and Wednesday's loss against Thiem means that the Serb will next week crash out of the top two of men's tennis rankings for the first time in the last five-and-half years.
What makes this defeat more appalling is the fact that the 30-year-old had a perfect record of 5-0 against the sixth seeded Austrian Thiem before this match.
The third set also marked the first time since the first round of the 2005 US Open that Djokovic suffered a bagel set (a set where a player is not able to win even a single game) at a slam and even then he came back to beat Gael Monfils in five sets.
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