{"id":154062,"date":"2022-05-03T20:10:08","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=154062"},"modified":"2022-05-04T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T10:43:58","slug":"novak-downs-monfils-in-madrid-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-downs-monfils-in-madrid-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak downs Monfils in Madrid opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strong start for Nole in Madrid!<\/p>\n

World no.1 Novak Djokovic began his Mutua Madrid Open<\/a> campaign with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Gael Monfils in one hour and 27 minutes on Manolo Santana Stadium on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match was interrupted due to rain at 2-2 in the first set, and when the play resumed, the three-time former champion dominated the contest.<\/p>\n

Novak converted all three break points he earned and saved all five break point chances against his own serve, improving to a historic 18-0 career H2H record against the Frenchman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The meeting was only their second match on clay. The spectators could see plenty of entertaining rallies between two great shotmakers.<\/p>\n

“For me mentally this is a very important win,\u201d<\/em> Novak said. \u201cI played one of the most athletic and quickest players that we have in the game. I know I have to always be ready that another ball will always come back from his part of the court, that you have to constantly try to have a controlled aggression\u2026 and dictate the point. I was moving well, dictating with the forehand side, moving him around the court and finding my serve and also the last few service games, finding my return.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Djokovic next takes on 2008 and 2015 titlist Andy Murray (GBR, WC) who defeated Denis Shapovalov (CAN, 14).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The two tennis greats have met 36 times, Novak leads their H2H series 25-11. The third round match is scheduled on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nole began his Mutua Madrid Open campaign with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Gael Monfils in one hour and 27 minutes. The top seed goes on to face Andy Murray (GBR, WC) on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":154052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012203,101011267,101013236,113,101012235],"class_list":["post-154062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-madrid-en","tag-masters-1000-en","tag-mutua-madrid-open-2022-en","tag-second-round","tag-spain-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154062","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=154062"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154084,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154062\/revisions\/154084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}