{"id":620,"date":"2014-08-22T08:16:45","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T08:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=620"},"modified":"2014-08-22T08:16:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T08:16:45","slug":"djokovic-still-favourite-for-us-open-says-mcenroe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic still favourite for US Open, says McEnroe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Djokovic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Roger Federer is the form player going into next week\u2019s US Open but Novak Djokovic is the favourite to win the title for a second time, according to a former champion John McEnroe, Reuters<\/em> reports.<\/p>\n

Federer, who reigned supreme at Flushing Meadows with five consecutive titles from 2004, won the Cincinnati title last week on the back of reaching the final in Toronto and with world No.2 Rafa Nadal injured, many believe the 33-year-old Swiss maestro can claim an 18th grand slam title.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously not having to deal with (Nadal) is a huge positive for him potentially down the road if he\u2019s at a stage at the end of the event,\u201d McEnroe said in a conference call with TV channel ESPN <\/em>for whom he will be working as a commentator during the year\u2019s final grand slam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would give a slight, slight favourite to Djokovic based on it being best-of-five. He\u2019s younger and he can go the distance perhaps a little bit more easily than Roger at this stage. A little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on what happens leading up to it if they were to play in the final, some of it would have to do with how much was left in the tank from previous matches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic beat Federer in an epic Wimbledon final but the 27-year-old, who has just married long-time girlfriend Jelena Ristic, lost early in Toronto and Cincinnati and McEnroe believes the Serb has lost focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Novak\u2019s mind has been into it since \u2013 it was one of the greatest matches I ever saw at Wimbledon,\u201d he said. \u201cHe got married. I didn\u2019t see a lot of his matches since, but I saw a few. I think it was difficult for him to get back into the swing of things. I believe he\u2019ll be ready here.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is no foregone conclusion that Djokovic and Federer will contest the final, though.<\/p>\n

McEnroe believes Briton Andy Murray, the 2012 champion, can use the U.S. Open to spark a long-awaited return to form, while he also tips Canada\u2019s Milos Raonic and Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov to make strong runs on the New York cement.<\/p>\n

Murray has not won a title since Wimbledon last year and has slipped to ninth in the world rankings, although he will be seeded eight in New York because of Nadal\u2019s wrist injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that if you look at it, he\u2019s not that far away,\u201d McEnroe, a four-time US Open champion, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends if you only look at the glass half empty or half full, and people do both. But given the fact that he had a surgery on his back, which is pretty serious, if you look at his results at the majors, he wasn\u2019t that far off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s putting himself in the position slowly but surely. To me, he\u2019s the third favourite.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roger Federer is the form player going into next week\u2019s US Open but Novak Djokovic is the favourite to win the title for a second time, according to a former champion John McEnroe, Reuters reports. Federer, who reigned supreme at Flushing Meadows with five consecutive titles from 2004, won the Cincinnati title last week on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Djokovic.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-a0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}