{"id":164007,"date":"2023-04-11T18:30:49","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T16:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=164007"},"modified":"2023-04-12T13:51:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T11:51:05","slug":"monte-carlo-masters-novak-moves-into-last-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/monte-carlo-masters-novak-moves-into-last-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Monte-Carlo Masters: Novak moves into last 16"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>World no.1 Novak Djokovic made a winning return to action on Tuesday, when he defeated world no.198 Ivan Gakhov 7-6 (5), 6-2 to reach the third round at the <a href=\"https:\/\/montecarlotennismasters.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters<\/a>. <\/strong>The match lasted one hour and 47 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Novak had to work hard to beat the Russian qualifier. After the players traded breaks once in the opening set, they ended up in a tie-break. It was the top seed who emerged victorious, 7-5.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-time Grand Slam champion\u00a0raised his level in the second set and found flaws Gakhov&#8217;s game to break his serve twice, in the fifth and seventh games. He is now 16-1 on the season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;It was, if you can call it that way, an ugly tennis win for me today,&#8221;<\/strong> Djokovic said. <strong>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t played my best, particularly in the first set. And I kind of expected that that was going to happen with swirly conditions, a lot of wind today, changing directions. It&#8217;s different practising and then playing an official match on clay, where I guess no two bounces are the same. It&#8217;s always quite unpredictable what&#8217;s going to happen. But all in all, I&#8217;m just pleased with the way I held my nerves in the important moments and I managed to clinch the two-set win. <\/strong><strong>He knows how to play, no doubt about it. Big serve, forehand, flat backhand stepping in. <\/strong><strong>So it was a very tricky opponent for today, but I&#8217;m glad I overcame the challenge.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Match statistics: aces (4-5), double faults (2-7), winners (14-24), unforced errors (21-31), total points won (79-63).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak will next play no.16 seed Lorenzo Musetti (def. qualifier Luca Nardi 6-0, 6-0).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Serbian star is pursuing a record-extending 39th ATP Masters 1000 title and his third trophy in Monte-Carlo.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world no.1 made a winning return to action on Tuesday, when he defeated ATP no.198 Ivan Gakhov 7-6 (5), 6-2 to reach the third round. He will next play no.16 seed Lorenzo Musetti.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":164005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012329,101013052,113],"class_list":["post-164007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-monte-carlo-en","tag-rolex-monte-carlo-masters-en","tag-second-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164007","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=164007"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164071,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164007\/revisions\/164071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}