A dominant display by Novak at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia today.
Top seed and world no.1 Novak Djokovic continued his bid for a record-extending 39th Masters 1000 crown, following a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Cameron Norrie in Rome on Tuesday.
The 35-year-old Serbian star booked his place in the Italian Open quarter-finals for the 17th consecutive year, maintaining his impressive consistency at the Foro Italico.
Nole headed into the fourth round contest as a strong favourite after wins over Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Grigor Dimitrov.
The 22-time Grand Slam titlist controlled the points and dictated the rallies. He raced to a 3-0 lead and went on to wrap up the first set. The two had exchanged breaks once in the second set, before Novak broke to love for 5-4 and served it out to seal his 20th win this season.
Djokovic has now won all three of his meetings against the British no.1.
“So far, so good”, Novak said after advancing in 89 minutes. “It was an early start today, strange conditions. We warmed up just, like, 20 minutes. I finished my warm-up 10 minutes before coming on court, so was rushing a bit with everything. But we couldn’t play earlier because of the rain, so I’m glad to have overcome today’s challenges in straight sets and move on.”
Match statistics: aces (3-4), double faults (3-1), winners (21-19), unforced errors (14-29), total points won (65-46).
The defending champion will face seventh seed Holger Rune of Norway next (1-1 career ATP H2H record). The quarter-final encounter is scheduled on Wednesday.
Photo: Profimedia
