He ended up serenading the crowd as usual with his favourite imaginary violin, but just for a brief moment earlier at Flushing Meadows, Novak Djokovic had appeared to be fiddling while his US Open hopes burned.
Seeking that record-breaking 25th grand-slam triumph that feels increasingly elusive, the great Djokovic found himself stuttering on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday after spraying around 14 unforced errors while losing the first set of his second-round clash to American qualifier Zachary Svajda.
Like his laboured first-round win over Learner Tien, the 38-year-old looked occasionally out-of-sorts and a bit rusty again before he finally found some rhythm and made only 11 more mistakes en route to beating the world No.145 Svajda 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 6-3 6-1.
