Adelaide International 1<\/a> on Saturday in a highly anticipated semi-final showdown.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe 35-year-old Serbian ace produced a stellar display to beat the Russian third seed for the ninth time in 13 encounters.<\/p>\n
Novak broke once in each set and saved all three break points he faced to seal the win in one hour and 29 minutes. He also won 89 percent of his first serve points.<\/p>\n
Leading 5-2 in the opening set, Novak was forced to leave the court for a medical timeout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully it was nothing too serious. If it was, I wouldn\u2019t be able to continue, so I just tried with a medical timeout, some anti-inflammatories and kind of settled in after a few games,\u201d<\/strong> Djokovic said. \u201cI was just trying to keep the momentum going and not allow him to break my serve. I think that was the key, that eventually I would get a chance. I think the longer the match went, the more my hamstring was warmer and bothering me less, so hopefully for tomorrow it will be all fine.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nNovak was putting constant pressure on Medvedev, who double faulted on break point in each set.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Daniil it\u2019s never easy. You always have to change the pace, mix up the serve, the return position, rallies, try to make him uncomfortable. So it\u2019s really a cat-and-mouse game in a way every single match. He\u2019s one of the best servers that we have in the world. Definitely on the courts like this where it\u2019s really quick and the ball kind of skids through the surface, it\u2019s tough to play him. But he made two double faults on two break points, both first and second sets. I knew that in those moments he might go for more so I was kind of changing my position and it worked.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nMatch statistics: aces (5-5), double faults (3-2), total points won (61-48)<\/p>\n
In the title clash on Sunday at 08:30 CET, Djokovic will face off world no.33 Sebastian Korda for the ATP 250 event trophy. <\/strong>It will be their first career meeting.<\/p>\nThe American led Yoshihito Nishioka 7-6, 1-0 when the Japanese retired due to an injury.<\/p>\n
Novak, the 21-time Grand Slam champion, will be bidding for a 92nd career title and first in 2023.<\/p>\n
Photo: EPA<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nole is through to his first Adelaide final in 16 years. The top seed defeated Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 6-4 to progress into the ATP 250 event championship match. In the title clash on Sunday at 08:30 CET, Djokovic will face off world no.33 Sebastian Korda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":161506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161511","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=161511"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161596,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161511\/revisions\/161596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}