Playing Novak Djokovic at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York would be the pinnacle of many tennis players careers.
For Conor Niland, that turned into a nightmare thanks to a bout of food poisoning he picked up just days before.
Niland is a former pro who reached a career highest ranking of 129 in the world.
He reached the first round of the US Open in 2011 after coming through qualifying and drew Djokovic, who had won Wimbledon just a few months before.
Niland detailed what happened in his book The Rackets, which has been shortlisted for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2024, and recently sat down with talkSPORT’s Adrian Durham to talk about what happened.
“I played three rounds of qualifying to get through to the main draw, was out at dinner when my phone went bananas,” Niland said. “I picked it up and I had all these messages that just said ‘Djokovic, Djokovic, Djokovic’.
“Obviously, I’d been drawn against Djokovic in the main draw. I was due to play on Tuesday.
“A hurricane rolled into New York and in his wisdom Mayor Bloomberg shut the Brooklyn Bridge for the weekend. Loads of restaurants were shut and in the hotel there was a list of places that were open for food.
“I went to a restaurant around the corner. I had a meal, came back and woke up at 1am in the morning and was very ill.
“That was Saturday and I was sick all night. The next two days were just figuring it out.
“Andy Murray sent over his doctor to my hotel, I think he wanted me to soften up Djokovic so he wouldn’t be in his prime for him.
“In fairness, that was really cool of him.
“I went out and played Novak and I was really, really ill. That lasted about 45 minutes, or about three-quarters of a bottle of beer as my brother said.
“I was able to get that experience, but I didn’t enjoy the lead up so that was disappointing.”
Niland was trailing 0-6, 1-5 in that match before finally throwing in the towel and retired.
Fast forward a few months and he bumped into Djokovic again in Australia, who asked how he was.
“I walked into the locker room in Australia and he was like ‘hey man, hope you’ve recovered’. Obviously I recovered two days later.”
He added: “When I saw him at the US Open and there’s this thing in tennis where you see them in the locker room half an hour before and you make eye contact and it’s a bit weird.
“He looked at me and was looking amazing. I was slumped in the chair and had just come out the toilet again.
“In fairness to him, he did remember me and did reach out.”
Listen to the full interview with Adrian Durham on talkSPORT’s YouTube channel.
