{"id":158207,"date":"2022-09-29T21:04:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T19:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=158207"},"modified":"2022-09-30T15:05:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T13:05:01","slug":"novak-defeats-andujar-in-tel-aviv-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-defeats-andujar-in-tel-aviv-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak defeats Andujar in Tel Aviv opener, reaches last 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Top seed Novak Djokovic made a winning start at the <a href=\"https:\/\/tawo.co.il\/tawo-tour-main-en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tel Aviv Watergen Open<\/a> on Thursday, cruising past Pablo Andujar 6-0, 6-3 to reach quarter-finals in Tel Aviv, Israel.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a strong serving display, the Serbian star fired eight aces and did not face a break point en route to his 87-minute victory.<\/p>\n<p>Novak broke three times in the first set. The second set was more competitive. A crucial break was made in the eighth game, after which the 21-time Grand\u00a0 Slam champion closed out the match on his own serve, for a perfect 3-0 H2H career mark against the Spaniard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Fantastic atmosphere here tonight, thank you very much,&#8221;<\/strong> Djokovic said in his on-court interview. <strong>&#8220;I like the court, it&#8217;s very intimate and it&#8217;s very loud. The crowd here is very passionate about the sport, about tennis and I&#8217;m really, really happy to be here and to perform here in front of you, so thank you for your support. The first match started off in a perfect way for me. I won seven games in a row and we were fighting in that eighth game,&#8221;<\/strong> Nole said of a game that lasted about 20 minutes. <strong>&#8220;It was one of the longest games I&#8217;ve ever played in my life and I&#8217;ve played many, many games in my life. But credit to Pablo for fighting and playing a great match as well.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (8-3), double faults (0-5), winners (30-17), unforced errors (9-15), total points won (69-46).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak will next face Vasek Pospisil (H2H record 5-0), who entered the main draw as a \u201clucky loser&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Canadian eliminated Israeli qualifier Edan Leshem 6-3, 6-2.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novak powered into the Tel Aviv Watergen Open quarter-finals on Thursday after dominating Pablo Andujar to seal the 6-0, 6-3 win in one hour and 27 minutes. For a place in the ATP 250 event semi-finals, the Serbian star will face Canadian Vasek Pospisil (H2H record 5-0).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":158201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012178,101013258,113,101013259,101013260],"class_list":["post-158207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-250-en-2","tag-israel","tag-second-round","tag-tel-aviv-en","tag-tel-aviv-watergen-open-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158207","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=158207"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158277,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158207\/revisions\/158277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}