28. 03. 2011. ยท
Second-seeded Novak Djokovic defeated American wild card and home favourite James Blake in straight sets 6-2, 6-0 in only 52 minutes in their third career meeting to reach the fourth round at the Sony Ericsson Open, an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament.
Novak made a break in the fourth game of the opening set and then held to love to increase his lead to 4-1. The 23-year-old Serb earned a break/set point in the eighth game. He fired a backhand winner down the line to take a second break of serve and sealed the opening set 6-2 in 28 minutes.
Blake had no answer to Djokovic’s power. The Australian Open champion continued to put the pressure on his opponent. He raced through the second set with a triple break for another 6-0 on the scoreboard.
Match statistics: aces (5-2), double faults (1-4), winners (14-8), unforced errors (12-20), total points won (56-29).
Last game of the match:
Nole is a phenomenal 20-0 on the season and has the third-longest winning streak to start a season in the last 30 years! John McEnroe is first with 39 wins (1984), Ivan Lendl is second with 25 victories in a row (1986).
“To be honest, I’m taking it one match at a time and trying to win against the opponent that I have today and not thinking about what happened or what can happen,” said Djokovic, following his win over Blake.
Novak will next take on his friend and countryman world no.17 Viktor Troicki who beat American Sam Querrey 7-6, 3-6, 7-5.
Djokovic and Troicki have met nine times, Nole leads 8-1. This will be their third match in 2011!
Although Novak has dominated their head-to-head series, Troicki does have something on the two-time Australian Open champion. “The first tournament in my life that I played, I won my first match and then I lost to him. And he gave me a bagel. It was 9 0. I still have a video of that match, and we still joke around a little bit,” laughed Djokovic.
