{"id":164321,"date":"2023-04-19T18:44:17","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T16:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=164321"},"modified":"2023-04-20T12:59:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T10:59:31","slug":"novak-overcomes-van-assche-challenge-in-banja-luka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-overcomes-van-assche-challenge-in-banja-luka\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak overcomes Van Assche challenge in Banja Luka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Novak Djokovic withstood an early challenge to advance to the last eight of the <a href=\"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Srpska Open<\/a> on Wednesday in Banja Luka.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The world no.1 rallied from a set down to defeat Luca Van Assche 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-2 and reach the quarter-finals of the ATP 250 event.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Novak converted six of his 11 break points and was broken twice during the two hour, 39-minute clash.<\/p>\n<p>Novak failed to capitalise on three set points in the opening set before the French teen won the tie-break. The 22-time Grand Slam champion kept getting better as the match progressed and he broke twice in the second set to force a decider.<\/p>\n<p>Van Assche broke first, but Nole grabbed four games in a row for a 4-1 lead in the third set. He kept the advantage and broke once more to seal the victory.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy,\u201d<\/em> Djokovic said. <em>\u201cThis would probably rank as the slowest court, slowest conditions I\u2019ve ever played in, to be honest. I couldn\u2019t penetrate through the court. I couldn\u2019t put any ball past him. He was on every single ball for a set-and-a-half until I started to get some rhythm going. I\u2019m happy with the way I finished the match. Of course I can always play better, but a win is a win.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>The top-seeded Serbian star will next play compatriot Dusan Lajovic (ATP #70, H2H 2-0). <\/strong>The quarter-final match is scheduled on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Srpska Open<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top seed Novak Djokovic earned his place in the last eight of the Srpska Open with a 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-2 victory against 18-year-old Frenchman Luca Van Assche.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":164317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101013336,101012113,101010525,101013334],"class_list":["post-164321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-banjaluka-en","tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","tag-round-2-en","tag-srpska-open-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164321","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164321"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164404,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164321\/revisions\/164404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}