Nole claimed his first win of the European clay swing, recording the straight sets victory on Court Rainier III on Wednesday, in one hour and 34 minutes.<\/p>\n
World no.1 and two-time Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters champion Novak Djokovic defeated the 2021 Miami Open runner-up, Italian Jannik Sinner, 6-4, 6-2 in their first career encounter, to advance into the last 16 in the Principality. It was Novak’s first match since claiming a record-extending ninth Australian Open title.<\/p>\n The players had traded breaks twice before the 33-year-old Serbian star managed to take the topsy-turvy first set, breaking his rival for the third time in the 10th game.<\/p>\n Djokovic, the 18-time Grand Slam titlist, maintained the momentum and continued to control the match, converting two more break points in the second set to improve to a perfect 10-0 W\/L record in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels great to be back and also playing in Monaco, where I reside,\u201d<\/strong> said Novak in his post-match interview. \u201cI have used this club as a training base for almost 15 years, so it feels like playing at home. It was a very good encounter. I thought it was a great first match and a big challenge for me. Jannik is in form. He played the final in Miami and has been playing well. I just hung in there today and managed to find the right shots and the right game at the right time.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Match statistics: aces (0-1), double faults (2-2), winners (20-17), unforced errors (21-28), total points won (67-55).<\/p>\n Next up for Novak will be Daniel Evans on Thursday. It will be their first career meeting. <\/strong><\/p>\n The 33rd-ranked Brit upset no.13 seed Hubert Hurkacz (POL) 6-4, 6-1. Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" World no.1 and two-time champion defeated Italian Jannik Sinner 6-4, 6-2 in their first career encounter. Next up for Novak will be Daniel Evans (GBR, ATP #33) on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":142475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101013141,101011267,101012329,101013052,113],"class_list":["post-142477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-clay-en","tag-masters-1000-en","tag-monte-carlo-en","tag-rolex-monte-carlo-masters-en","tag-second-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142477","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=142477"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142540,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142477\/revisions\/142540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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