{"id":140343,"date":"2021-02-08T12:35:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T11:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=140343"},"modified":"2021-02-08T13:22:32","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T12:22:32","slug":"novak-starts-strong-races-into-australian-open-second-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-starts-strong-races-into-australian-open-second-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak starts strong, races into Australian Open second round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Novak produced a tennis masterclass to beat Jeremy Chardy in straight sets as the world no.1 got off to the perfect start at the <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2021 Australian Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In his 84th match at Melbourne Park, defending champion Novak Djokovic needed just 91 minutes to storm past Jeremy Chardy and reach the second round for the 15th consecutive year. <\/strong><strong>The eight-time titlist beat the Frenchman 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena to notch his opening-round win.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic is now holding an 76-8 W\/L record at the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Novak converted six of his 13 break point opportunities. He broke Chardy twice in each set, and didn\u2019t face a break point during the contest to improve to a perfect 14-0 in their H2H.<\/p>\n<p>The Serbian star won 86% of points behind his first serve and was 18\/24 on net approaches. He closed out the dominant display with an ace.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;It&#8217;s an ongoing love affair between me and this court. Hopefully I can have many great matches with these types of performances,&#8221;<\/strong> Djokovic said. <strong>&#8220;I wanted to start off well. It&#8217;s my most successful and favourite court over the years. It feels great and it makes my heart full to see a crowd in the stadium again.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (9-3), double faults (1-3), winners (41-20), unforced errors (11-26), total points won (91-52).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak goes on to face 64th-ranked Frances Tiafoe on Wednesday, after the American defeated Stefano Travaglia of Italy, 7-6, 6-2, 6-2.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It will be the first career meeting between the two players.<\/p>\n<p>On playing Tiafoe next, Djokovic said: <strong>&#8220;I think it is going to be the first time I get to play against him, I look forward to it. He is one of the young, up and coming American players. I look forward to the next challenge.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In just 91 minutes inside RLA, the top seed and defending champion made a statement behind a 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jeremy Chardy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":140338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012354,101013175,133,101012476,101010469,101012415],"class_list":["post-140343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australia-en","tag-australian-open-2021-en","tag-defending-champion","tag-first-round-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-melbourne-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140343","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=140343"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140368,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140343\/revisions\/140368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}