Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships<\/a> in his second match of the season, to move into the quarter-finals at the ATP 500 event.<\/strong><\/p>\nNovak brought his best game in the crucial moments of the match. He did not face a break point in the first set, and broke his rival once, in the fourth game.<\/p>\n
The second set was way more competitive. The top-seeded Serbian star converted his break point chance in the third game, but Khachanov responded by breaking back in the eighth game to level at 4-all. The five-time former champion was confident and dominant in a tie-break. He won it 7-2, extending his W\/L record in Dubai to 43-6.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was feeling excited and motivated,\u201d<\/strong> Djokovic said. \u201cBut also at the same time I was feeling stressed. Particularly at the moments when I was facing break points. I am glad that I managed to stay focused after I lost two consecutive games. I knew that I would have a chance in the tie-break, balls were a bit fluffy, which suited me. The atmosphere in the stadium was terrific. Full stands, it was phenomenal. This is what we play for. I missed it [playing competitively]. This is my life. Tennis is my love. I enjoying bringing positive energy and memories for people who watch.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nNovak won 83% of his first-serve points to improve to 5-1 against Khachanov in their ATP H2H series. He was also convincing on net approaches, 11\/13 (85%).<\/p>\n
Match statistics: aces (6-2), double faults (3-2), winners (22-18), unforced errors (15-17), total points won (72-60).<\/p>\n
Next up for the 20-time Grand Slam titlist is a qualifier, Jiri Vesely. The Czech upset no.8 seed Roberto Bautista Agut (ESP), recording a straight-sets victory, 6-2, 6-4.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe quarter-final match is scheduled on Wednesday at 19:00 local time\/16:00 CET.<\/p>\n
Djokovic has lifted the trophy in Dubai five times (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2020).<\/p>\n
Photo: EPA-EFE \/ Ali Haider<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak withstood the challenge of world no.26 Karen Khachanov to prevail 6-3, 7-6 (2) in their second round encounter at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. The top seed goes on to play qualifier Jiri Vesely next (CZE, ATP #123).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":152384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012179,101012197,101012429,113,101012199],"class_list":["post-152387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-500-en","tag-dubai-en","tag-dubai-duty-free-tennis-championships-en","tag-second-round","tag-uae-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152387","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=152387"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152401,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152387\/revisions\/152401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}