Novak Djokovic in world of his own as mental armour repels all opposition | Emma Kemp

There were the accusations he was faking his hamstring injury, and then of cheating over the mystery note taped to the bottle of mystery liquid delivered to him on court. In recent days, the allegations his father sympathised with Vladimir Putin supporters overshadowed all of it.

There were moments in the second set when his special kind of armoury risked springing a leak. His father was not in attendance but his mother was, and Dijana buried her face in her hands as her son let fly two unforced errors and a double fault in one of the more tense tie-breaks to have been played. Djokovic himself could not stop talking, motor-mouthing, a bit at himself but mostly at his box. Goran Ivanisevic motioned for him to calm down. But Tsitsipas, fight though he did, had not received the memo: Djokovic has not lost a single match in his 17 Australian Open campaigns after winning the first set. He is now 93-0 in that department.