{"id":156249,"date":"2022-06-27T18:07:14","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T16:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=156249"},"modified":"2022-06-27T19:44:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T17:44:47","slug":"defending-champion-novak-beats-soonwoo-kwon-in-opener-claims-his-80th-wimbledon-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/defending-champion-novak-beats-soonwoo-kwon-in-opener-claims-his-80th-wimbledon-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending champion Novak beats Kwon in opener, claims 80th Wimbledon win"},"content":{"rendered":"

World no.3 Novak Djokovic began his Wimbledon<\/a> title defence with a four set victory over Soonwoo Kwon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Kwon took a set off the top-seeded Serb in a praiseworthy effort, Djokovic emerged as a winner 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Novak overcame his spirited opponent in two hours and 27 minutes.<\/p>\n

The 81st-ranked South Korean broke first and consolidated the break to go 3-1 up. Novak battled back to win the next five games and take the set, breaking Kwon twice in the process.<\/p>\n

Kwon again raced to a 3-1 lead in the second set. This time, he kept that lead and took the set 6-3 to level the contest.<\/p>\n

We didn’t see a break of serve in the first seven games of the third set. Novak made a break to go 5-3 up and held to grab a 2-1 lead in the match.<\/p>\n

A single break in the fourth game proved enough for Novak to earn a record-breaking win at SW19 and come through his tricky first-round encounter.<\/p>\n

“I’ve said this before but this court is truly special, for me it has always been the court I dreamed of playing and winning and all my childhood dreams came true here so it’s an honour and pleasure to be back on Centre Court,”<\/strong> said Djokovic.<\/p>\n

On winning 80 matches at Wimbledon, Nole added: “This sport has given me everything, I owe a lot to the sport and I love it still with all my heart. I am as dedicated as anyone out there, I am not one of the youngsters anymore but the love for this sport still burns in me and I try to always play my best tennis at Grand Slams and deliver my best tennis at the best courts. Now that we’re at 80, let’s get to 100.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics: aces (15-7), double faults (2-5), winners (31-31), unforced errors (29-26), total points won (112-94).<\/p>\n

Novak will be looking to win a seventh Wimbledon title this year.<\/p>\n

He goes on to play against Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis (def. Pole Kamil Majchrzak) in the second round on Wednesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Defending champion Novak Djokovic began his quest for a seventh Wimbledon title with a hard-fought four-set win over South Korean Kwon Soon-woo under the Centre Court roof – 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":156246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[133,310,101010469,101012193,101011449,101013242],"class_list":["post-156249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-defending-champion","tag-first-round","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-london-en","tag-the-championships-en","tag-wimbledon-2022-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156249","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=156249"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156267,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156249\/revisions\/156267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}