17. 01. 2011. ·
Australian Open 2008 champion Novak Djokovic has breezed through to the second round of the tournament after downing world no.42 Spain’s Marcel Granollers in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 in just 91 minutes on Monday in Melbourne.
The world no.3 looked in good form on Rod Laver Arena. Nole clearly didn’t want to stay too late on court in the last match of the day. He made an impressive start. The players were on court for about 20 minutes and Djokovic already had a 5-0 lead. He made two breaks, in the second and fourth games, and took the set 6-1 in 26 minutes.
Novak broke his opponent’s serve already in the opening game of the second set. He let his concentration slip a little in the sixth game as he allowed Granollers to break back for 3-3. But that was all from the Spaniard till the end of the set. Nole sealed it 6-3 with two more breaks.
The third set was much like the first. Granollers was broken twice. The 23-year-old Belgrade native wraped up the win with a huge first serve.
“Definitely I’m satisfied with the performance today. It’s the first competitive match. I had a couple in the Hopman Cup, but this is different. It’s a Grand Slam. It’s the best of five. I had around seven, eight days between Hopman Cup and start of Australian Open to get ready. I practiced really hard, worked on a couple of things. Just happy with the way I played overall. Now I look forward to upcoming challenge,” said Nole in his postmatch interview.
“Right here I took the ball early from the start, wanted to be aggressive, give him no choice to come back to the match. Definitely this performance gives me more confidence and gives me enough reason to think that I can beat anyone.”
Novak served 7 aces to Granollers’s 3.
He recorded 34 winners to his opponent’s 15.
The Serb made 17 unforced errors to the Spaniard’s 26.
Nole converted 7 of his 12 break points, while Granollers capitalised on 1 of his 2 chances for break.
Third-seeded Djokovic next faces world no.81 Croat Ivan Dodig who defeated his countryman Ivo Karlovic in five sets 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.
Nole won their only encounter in Marseille 2008, 6-1, 6-4.
