{"id":115397,"date":"2019-01-17T14:54:16","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T13:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=115397"},"modified":"2019-01-21T18:23:21","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T17:23:21","slug":"nole-moves-past-tsonga-into-third-round-of-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/nole-moves-past-tsonga-into-third-round-of-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole moves past Tsonga into third round of Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Novak remained on course for a seventh title in Melbourne after the second round win over the player he beat to claim his first Australian championship trophy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Six-time former champion Novak Djokovic booked his spot in the third round of <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2019 Australian Open<\/a> with a 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 victory over 2008 finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Thursday night.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Novak completed an efficient performance at 12:40 am local time on Friday morning.<\/p>\n<p>The French wild card showed flashes of his ability but the 31-year-old Serbian ace was always in control.<\/p>\n<p>Novak first broke for a 3-1 lead, but Tsonga broke back. Another break from the Belgrade native was consolidated with a love service hold and the opening set went to the top seed after 31 minutes of play.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic had saved three break points in the second set before he converted his chance in the seventh game. The Frenchman fought back in the 10th to level at 5-all, but Nole took his chances and kept Tsonga under pressure which lead to one more break of serve in the 11th game. He did not drop a point serving it out for 7-5.<\/p>\n<p>A break in the fifth game of the third set was enough for Novak to claim his 17th win over Tsonga in their 23 career encounters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cI thought I played pretty well for a set and a half,<\/strong> <strong>and I gained confidence in the third,\u201d <\/strong>Djokovic said. <strong>\u201cIt\u2019s tough for Jo, who\u2019s struggled with injuries the past year. But he\u2019s always been a top player.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (12-10), double faults (1-1), winners (33-30), unforced errors (24-32), total points won (100-79).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9qeKn1RxxTc\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak will next play 25th seed Denis Shapovalov. It will be their first career meeting.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old NextGen Canadian defeated Taro Daniel of Japan 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-3.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead to Saturday&#8217;s last 32 clash, Novak said: <strong>&#8220;He brings a lot of energy to the court, which is great to see. I expect a very interesting encounter. He will not have anything really to lose, so I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;s going to come out really pumped.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novak booked his spot in the third round with a 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 win over 2008 finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He goes on to play 19-year-old NextGen Canadian Denis Shapovalov on Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":115388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012354,101013041,101010469,101012415,101011697],"class_list":["post-115397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australia-en","tag-australian-open-2019-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-melbourne-en","tag-second-round-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115397"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115618,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115397\/revisions\/115618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}