Serbia Open<\/a> with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory in one hour and 59 minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe 25-year-old Russian broke in the very first game of the contest and consolidated it for 2-0 lead, then went on to take the opener 6-4.<\/p>\n
Novak clinched the second set in style, with two breaks of serve, in the fourth and sixth games, to force a decider.<\/p>\n
The 20-time Grand Slam champion dominated the third set also, converting his chances in the first and fifth games.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll three matches were key matches for me, to be honest,”<\/strong> Djokovic said. “I didn’t start well, losing the first set again. I was a break down today as I was in the first two matches of the tournament. I think as soon as the second set started I was just feeling the ball and started swinging through particularly the backhand which wasn\u2019t working in the first set. I was serving well, dictating the play in the second and third sets, the best two sets of the season so far for me and against a really quality tennis player. Playing at home with the unbelievable support from the crowd always gives me goosebumps and motivation to play my best and fight until the end.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nMatch statistics: aces (6-1), double faults (2-0), total points won (80-65).<\/p>\n
Novak, who will face second seed Andrey Rublev (RUS, H2H 1-0) in Sunday’s title match (14:00 CET), is seeking his first trophy of the 2022 season and the third Serbian Open crown. The Serbian star is one win away from his 87th career title.<\/strong><\/p>\nRublev toppled Fabio Fognini (ITA, 6) 6-2, 6-2 in the second semi-final of the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The top seed overcame a challenge by Russian Karen Khachanov and progressed into the final of the Serbia Open with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory in one hour and 59 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":153461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012178,101012319,101010433,101013184],"class_list":["post-153479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-250-en-2","tag-belgrade-en","tag-semifinal-en","tag-serbia-open-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153479","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=153479"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153621,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153479\/revisions\/153621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}