{"id":140451,"date":"2021-02-10T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=140451"},"modified":"2021-02-10T10:24:48","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T09:24:48","slug":"ao-nole-survives-tiafoe-challenge-to-progress-into-r3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/ao-nole-survives-tiafoe-challenge-to-progress-into-r3\/","title":{"rendered":"AO: Nole survives Tiafoe challenge to progress into R3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Novak needed three hours and 30 minutes to book a place in the third round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Australian Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Top seed Novak Djokovic has continued his great start to the season, battling past Frances Tiafoe in four sets inside Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The world no.1 improved to 4-0 this year, following a 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over the 64th-ranked American.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though the 23-year-old produced an inspired performance and went toe-to-toe with the defending champion, the Serbian ace rose to the challenge playing his best tennis in key moments to claim the win.<\/p>\n<p>Novak converted five of his 14 break point chances, while Tiafoe capitalised on two of the three opportunities he earned during their first career encounter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cIt was a very tough match, very warm, a lot of long rallies,&#8221;<\/strong> Djokovic said. <strong>&#8220;Frances put up a really good fight. High quality tennis, he gave his all. I was fortunate to get through the third set today. It was anyone\u2019s game and he served great. When you win a lot on Rod Laver Arena, you feel comfortable. It feels like my living room, although I\u2019m not sitting on my couch &#8211; I\u2019m running all over the place. This is the quickest court conditions I\u2019ve played in here.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (26-23), double faults (5-8), winners (56-49), unforced errors (37-43), total points won (145-123).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak next meets no.27 seed Taylor Fritz (H2H 2-0) as he continues his campaign for a record-extending ninth Australian Open title.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The American beat his compatriot Reilly Opelka in five sets (4-6, 7-6, 6-7, 7-6, 6-2).<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: AP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The top seed battled past Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (2), 6-3 in three hours and 30 minutes to reach the third round of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":140450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101011992,101013175,101010469,101012415,113],"class_list":["post-140451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australia","tag-australian-open-2021-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-melbourne-en","tag-second-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140451","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=140451"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140517,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140451\/revisions\/140517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}