Western & Southern Open<\/a> on Tuesday evening, coming back from a break deficit early in the match to defeat world no.45 Sam Querrey 7-5, 6-1.<\/strong><\/p>\nQuerrey started strong, breaking the top seed in the very first game. The Serbian star broke back in the sixth game to level, and once again in the 12th to take the opening set. The 32-year-old Belgrade native made a double break in the second set to close out the ninth win in 11 meetings with the American.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that I\u2019m a reigning champion wasn\u2019t affecting me positively or negatively. There was just excitement to be back on the court competing because it\u2019s been quite awhile since the Wimbledon final,\u201d<\/strong> said Djokovic. \u201cBut at the same time, I had the nervous start because I haven\u2019t played a match in four weeks. It took a while to adjust to his big game. I made three double faults in the opening game and didn\u2019t have the greatest of starts. It was a tricky match, a quality opponent and a big challenge, but I\u2019m happy to be tested right from the start. Hopefully the next performance will be even better.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nMatch statistics: aces (15-9), double faults (5-4), winners (24-22), unforced errors (15-27), total points won (74-53).<\/p>\n
Novak will have a day off before he takes on Spanish qualifier Pablo Carreno Busta (H2H 2-0) for a place in the ATP Masters 1000 event quarter-finals.<\/strong><\/p>\nBusta eliminated no.13 seed John Isner in three sets, 6-4, 6-7 (1), 7-6 (6).<\/p>\n
Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending champion advanced into the last 16 at the Western & Southern Open on Tuesday, following a 7-5, 6-1 win over world no.45 Sam Querrey. The match lasted one hour and 18 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":123939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012291,101011546,101011267,101011697,101013076],"class_list":["post-123942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-cincinnati-en","tag-defending-champion-en","tag-masters-1000-en","tag-second-round-en","tag-western-and-southern-open-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123942","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=123942"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123971,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123942\/revisions\/123971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}