The alien Djokovic makes his way to Alcaraz

We should find a new adjective to describe Novak Djokovic, or perhaps coin a specific neologism. The Goat ( Greatest Of All Time, ed. ) is no longer enough.

After defeating Norway's Rune in the recent Cincinnati tournament, Frenchman Térence Atmane celebrated his victory by discussing the Fermi Paradox, which raises the question of the likelihood of contact with alien lifeforms. Perhaps he hadn't spoken enough to Nole, who last night on center court at Arthur Ashe defeated American Taylor Fritz, eleven years his junior , for the eleventh consecutive time in four sets. At 38 years and 94 days, he became the oldest player in the Open era to reach all four Grand Slam men's singles semifinals.

Now he just needs to catch up with Jimbo, born Jimmy Connors, the quintessential unpleasant, who reached the semifinals in 1991 at the age of 39.

“I was very young, so I don’t remember exactly,” revealed Nole, who celebrated the victory with a dance dedicated to his daughter Tara. “But in the years that followed, growing up and watching a lot of tennis, everyone talked about this as one of the most historic events ever to take place in a Grand Slam tournament.”

The very noisy Arthur Ashe crowd, aware that Fritz was the last American in the draw of the 23 first-round entrants, tried to support the Californian in every way possible, but Djokovic, despite not putting in a performance worthy of a red circle, always managed to do the right thing at the right time, even when Fritz tried to get back into the match, increasing the intensity.

The Serbian served better and returned better, saved 11 break points, won 25 of 42 points in exchanges exceeding nine shots and won over 90% of the points with serve-and-volley .

“It was an incredibly close match,” he said in an on-court interview afterward. “For much of the second and third sets, he was the better player, but these are matches that are decided on a few points.” In other words, these are matches that Novak Djokovic wins. As usual .

Americans have been waiting twenty-two years to see one of their fellow countrymen triumph and lift the trophy in New York; the last was Andy Roddick. But it looks like they'll be forced to wait at least another twelve months.

Now the Serbian tennis player has two days off, "I won't be training. At my age, you'll understand," and then the seminal match, his 53rd slam, against Carlos Alcaraz. He certainly won't be the favorite, but that doesn't matter.