{"id":129716,"date":"2020-01-12T13:17:19","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T12:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=129716"},"modified":"2020-01-12T16:18:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-12T15:18:42","slug":"novak-edges-nadal-to-force-deciding-doubles-in-atp-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-edges-nadal-to-force-deciding-doubles-in-atp-cup-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Serbia win the inaugural ATP Cup title!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Team Serbia are the first ever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atpcup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ATP Cup<\/a> champions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak backed up his big singles win, teaming with Viktor Troicki in a deciding doubles match to beat Pablo Carreno Busta\/Feliciano Lopez of Spain 6-3, 6-4.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the first singles rubber, Dusan Lajovic suffered a 5-7, 1-6 defeat by Roberto Bautista Agut, and Spain took a 1-0 lead in the final.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak followed with a brilliant perfomance that saw him beat world no.1 Rafael Nadal 6-2, 7-6 (4), and pulled team Serbia even in the tie 1-1.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 16-time Grand Slam champion dominated from the start. He broke the Spaniard in the first and seventh games to seal the opening set in convincing fashion.<\/p>\n<p>Novak saved all five break points he faced in the second set, and went on to clinch a tie-break 7-4. He made a crucial mini-break at 4\/4 and served it out two points later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cEvery time I play Rafa we get to play a lot of exciting points,\u201d<\/strong> Djokovic said. <strong>\u201cWe had some incredible exchanges. I started off the match perfectly. Everything worked for me. Serve got me out of trouble in the second set.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (12-5), double faults (2-3), winners (38-17), unforced errors (23-14), total points won (75-59).<\/p>\n<p>Nole and Rafa have met for the 55th time, the Serb leads their ATP H2H 29-26.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PIpT0JzKjRA\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The doubles decided the inaugural ATP Cup champions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak returned to the court with Viktor Troicki against Spain&#8217;s Pablo Carreno Busta\/Feliciano Lopez. They recorded a straight sets win in one hour and 15 minutes to claim the inaugural ATP Cup for Serbia.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic\/Troicki fell down a break and 1-3 in the first set but, behind a vocal pro-Serbia crowd, they captured seven consecutive games to take a 2-0 lead in the second set. They kept the momentum going, completing the victory in the early hours of Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l6RCquv69Co\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cI&#8217;ll remember this experience for the rest of my life as definitely one of the nicest moments in my career,\u201d<\/strong> Novak said. <strong>\u201cI&#8217;ve been very fortunate and blessed to have an amazing career the last 15 years, but playing for the team, playing for the country with some of my best friends for a long long time, you can&#8217;t match that. That&#8217;s just too special.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Profimedia<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Team Serbia are the first ever ATP Cup champions! Lajovic suffered a 5-7, 1-6 defeat by Agut, then Novak beat Nadal 6-2, 7-6 (4) to even the tie. The world no.2 backed up his big singles win, teaming with Viktor Troicki in a deciding doubles match to beat Pablo Carreno Busta\/Feliciano Lopez of Spain 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":129798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101013097,101012354,101010437,101012262,101012235,101013085],"class_list":["post-129716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-cup-en","tag-australia-en","tag-final-en","tag-serbia-en","tag-spain-en","tag-sydney-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129716","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=129716"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129800,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129716\/revisions\/129800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}