After just three days at Flushing Meadows, there would appear to be nobody left in the 2020 US Open with a realistic chance of stopping Novak Djokovic winning his fourth New York title and 18th career slam. For now, Djokovic owns tennis. The absent champion, Rafael Nadal, and the resting lord of the manor, Roger Federer, will have watched him as avidly as the many players who sat in the hospitality boxes around the echoing Arthur Ashe stadium on Wednesday – including Andy Murray – all of them aware that the Serb, although not quite at his best, is the man to beat. Kyle Edmund tried hard to tame him and, for an hour, he made the world No 1 sweat with a mix of power and a few unexpected tweaks to his sometimes one-dimensional game. But there was an inevitability about the comeback and Djokovic won 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in three hours and 13 minutes. He hit 16 aces among 52 winners, irresistible stuff. It was his 25th match of 2020, his 25th win. In 2011, he went 41 matches before anyone could stop him. He is in that sort of mood. If he stays healthy, it will take a performance of the highest class to bring him down. It is unlikely to be Jan-Lennard Struff – who beat the unranked young American Michael Mmoh in straight sets – when they meet for the second time in a week in the third round on Friday. Djokovic allowed the German only four games in the Cincinnati Open on this site, and there is not much firepower left beyond Struff on that side of the draw. There was a surreal moment in the fifth game of the fourth set when Djokovic pulled off an extraordinary get and screamed at the top of his voice in the near-empty arena, the biggest in tennis. “We like to play with energy,” Djokovic said later. He added courtside: “Kyle played a fantastic first set, didn’t do much wrong. It was anyone’s game for a set and a half. Then I started to read it better, serve better. Kyle returned well, played well from the back of the court. There were quite a few breaks of serve today.” Although Djokovic brought his trademark, nagging consistency and energy-sapping late change of direction, Edmund outfoxed him in the first set with a couple of subtle changes to his power tennis. He has in his corner Franco Davín, the one-time Argentinian prodigy who guided Juan Martín del Potro to the title here in 2009, when he beat Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer back-to-back, and that intelligence was palpable. Edmund sucked Djokovic into a drop-shot duel in the first set, vaguely reminiscent of the soft-ball tactics with which Gaël Monfils confused the Serb for a time in their semi-final here four years ago. This time, similar tactics paid a stunning dividend for Edmund. After an opening hour of high-grade exchanges, Djokovic held to love to force the tie-break, where he was 10-0 for the season to Edmund’s 0-5, and came from 1-3, pausing to have a ball-kid mop up some moisture on the crossover at 3-3. However, he lost the fourth of nine drop shots, converted the 10th, then could do nothing about the Edmund ace down the T that took the first set away from him. The Briton’s concentration dipped at just the wrong moment, though, and, after a pair of double faults, Edmund lost nine of 11 points to go 4-1 down in the second before he had had time to change his shirt, shoes and socks. Within 40 minutes they were a set apiece. Djokovic hit another level to take the third – also with an ace down the middle – and, although Edmund was pushing him hard in key moments, he could not stem the flow. After being broken in the third, he held with an ace to get back to 4-5, but Djokovic served out to love for a 2-1 lead after two and a half hours. Djokovic picked up the tempo in the fourth, playing within himself and finishing the job with a cool smash. Off stage, there was further rumbling concern about the players who had come into contact with Benoît Paire, who tested positive for Covid-19 at the weekend. Among them is Daniil Medvedev, last year’s losing finalist, who plays the Australian outsider Chris O’Connell on Thursday. While there was no mention of Dan Evans’s French opponent in round two, Corentin Moutet, the British No 1 said: “I have no issues with playing him. But I would be devastated if I then tested positive and had to spend 14 days in my room. That would just be hell.” Cam Norrie, who dug himself out of a hole on Monday, looked considerably more relaxed beating the Argentinian, Federico Coria, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 on Court No 5. He next plays on Friday against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the 99th ranked Spaniard, who scored a fine 6-4, 1-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over the dangerous No 24 seed Hubert Hurkacz.