Top 10 Stories from the 2016 U.S. Open

Sept 11, 2016; New York, NY, USA; Novak Djokovic of Serbia reacts to a missed shot while playing Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland in the men

1. Novak Djokovic’s weirdest tournament ever

Once upon a time, before he learned about his food allergies and laid off the gluten, Novak Djokovic’s health problems caused him to retire from enough matches he even briefly endured the nickname of “Djokoquit.” Years later, when he had become the undisputed top player in the world but had a very bad summer, something strange happened. His opponents all started retiring on him instead.

Djokovic did have to battle to the end of his first match, in which he did not play his best. But he didn’t even have to take the court for the second round. Jiri Vesely, his would-be opponent, pulled out first in an inflamed left forearm. He did have to take the court for the third round, but he didn’t stay there long. At 4-1, opponent Mikhail Youzny apparently pulled a hamstring. One game later, he was unable to keep playing. Djokovic’s fourth-round opponent, Kyle Edmund, did hang in until the end, but he didn’t really pose much of a threat to the Serb. The first opponent who could’ve provided him with a challenge was Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, who lost two sets before also retiring due to a knee injury.

After he won the semi-final match crazy enough to warrant the previous entry on this list, he finally came up against Stan Wawrinka in the final. After a first set where it looked like Wawrinka wouldn’t be up to defeating him either, he rallied. By the standards of this tournament, Djokovic losing the next two sets was nothing remarkable, nor was even going down a break in the fourth. Except by then the Serb was also struggling in pain, and for one crazy moment people wondered if the last withdrawal in Djokovic’s crazy tournament would be he himself. But instead he just got multiple visits from the trainer and threw a very unimpressed Wawrinka off. Treatment included getting his bloody toenails clipped.

When Wawrinka held on to win the trophy, it was somewhat relieving, since he’d had to work so much harder to make the final. But considering some of things that have gone on this week, perhaps Novak Djokovic’s story is more reflective of what the 2016 U.S. Open was about. Craziness, and tennis players playing through it, because that’s all they can do. They can’t control who shows up to face them, or when the brass insists on bulldozing a stadium, or when someone else gets injured. They can only play, and we can only gape, and wonder if the 2017 Australian Open will offer any stories to compare to the ones that happened here.