{"id":130855,"date":"2020-01-30T12:13:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T11:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=130855"},"modified":"2020-01-31T18:46:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T17:46:52","slug":"novak-downs-federer-reaches-australian-open-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-downs-federer-reaches-australian-open-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak downs Federer, reaches Australian Open final!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nole is through to the Australian Open final!<\/p>\n<p>Seven-time champion Novak Djokovic defeated six-time former titlist Roger Federer on Rod Laver Arena in the <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Australian Open<\/a> semi-final on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak recorded a 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-3 win over the third-seeded Swiss in two hours and 18 minutes and is now leading 27-23 in their legendary ATP H2H rivalry.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic, who is bidding for a 17th Grand Slam title, recovered from 2-5 down in the first set to clinch it in a perfect tie-breaker. The world no.2 improved on serve and went on to dominate the second and third sets, breaking once in each to progress.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old Belgrade native has improved his perfect 2020 record to 12-0.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cIt definitely could have gone different way. He started really well and I was pretty nervous in the beginning,\u201d<\/strong> admitted Novak. <strong>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the right mindset from my side. I was looking more how he was moving, what he was doing, rather than executing my shots in the right way. It resulted being 1-4, 0-40 down. I managed to dig my way back, it was very important to win that first set. After that I relaxed a bit mentally and could swing through the ball a bit more. I tried to stay with him in the rally, move him around and not make too many unforced errors.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fq7NeC_9rsA\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (11-15), double faults (1-3), winners (31-46), unforced errors (18-35), total points won (113-93).<\/p>\n<p><strong>In Sunday&#8217;s final, Novak will face fifth-seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem (6-4 H2H record). The match is scheduled at 19:30 local time \/ 09:30 CET.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic has surrendered only one set en-route to the final. Should he go on to lift his eighth Melbourne crown, he will return to no.1 in ATP Rankings on February 3.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: AP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nole recorded a 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-3 victory over Roger Federer in their 50th career H2H match (27-23). The Serbian star will face Dominic Thiem (AUT, 5) in Sunday&#8217;s final, looking to win his eighth Australian Open crown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":130850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012354,101013108,101010469,101012415,101010433],"class_list":["post-130855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australia-en","tag-australian-open-2020-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-melbourne-en","tag-semifinal-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130855","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130855"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131093,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130855\/revisions\/131093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}