Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters<\/a> titlist.<\/p>\nIt was the first time the two were competing against each other on the ATP Tour. The match lasted two hours and six minutes.<\/p>\n
Novak made a slow start to his third-round match. The Brit came out firing and took an early 3-0 lead with a double break to give himself confidence against the world no.1. Djokovic clawed his way back to 4-4 but Evans broke again and clinched the opener in 57 minutes.<\/p>\n
The second set began in reverse as it was the top seed who opened with a 3-0 advantage. However, Evans kept fighting and continued to apply pressure on the Djokovic serve. He digged deep to break back in the fifth game and consolidated it to level at 3-all. He was moving Novak all over the court which forced the Serbian ace into making uncharacteristic unforced errors. The turning point came when Novak failed to convert a break\/set point hitting a backhand into the net on Evans\u2019 serve at 4-5, 30\/40. A few moments later he handed his rival a 6-5 lead with a double fault. Evans served it out securing a spot in a Masters 1000 quarter-final for the first time.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, this has been probably one of the worst matches and performances from my side I can recall in the last years. I don’t want to take anything away from his win, but from my side, I just felt awful on the court overall. Just nothing worked. Today was completely the opposite of what I felt yesterday,”<\/strong> said Djokovic. “It was very, very windy, tough to play in these kind of conditions against a guy like Evans who makes you move. He’s very unpredictable with his shots. He dismantled my game.”<\/strong><\/p>\nMatch statistics: aces (3-1), double faults (4-0), winners (28-21), unforced errors (45-22), total points won (75-80).<\/p>\n
Novak is heading to Belgrade, where the Serbia Open, an ATP 250 clay-court event, will be held next week – for the first time since 2012.<\/p>\n
In a very strong field at the Novak Tennis Center, Nole will be joined by Dominic Thiem, Matteo Berrettini, Gael Monfils, Dusan Lajovic …<\/p>\n
“I’m disappointed with the way I played, the way I felt on the court. But it’s a long clay season. Still plenty of tournaments, plenty of room to improve. Obviously I have to work, and hopefully get a better performance next week in Belgrade.”<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\nDjokovic has won the title in his hometown twice (2009, 2011).<\/p>\n
Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British no.1 Daniel Evans handed Novak first loss of 2021 in R3 of Monte Carlo, following a surprise 6-4, 7-5 win in two hours and six minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":142592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101013141,101011267,101012329,101013052],"class_list":["post-142595","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142595","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=142595"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142627,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142595\/revisions\/142627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}