French Open<\/a> titlist, Novak Djokovic, defeated Aleksandar Kovacevic 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (1) in windy conditions on Philippe Chatrier on Monday, to reach the second round in Paris.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Serbian star did not offer many opportunities to the 114th-ranked American in the first part of the match. He broke once in the first set, and twice in the second to grab a two sets to love lead.<\/p>\n
The third set was a tighter affair as the two players exchanged breaks twice, before going to a tie-break. Djokovic won it comfortably 7-1 to clinch his 21st victory this year.<\/p>\n
Novak won 82 per cent (37\/45) of points behind his first serve.<\/p>\n
Match statistics: aces (10-7), double faults (1-4), winners (41-25), unforced errors (22-34), total points won (107-78).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pleasure to play here, it\u2019s a great tournament… there are a lot of emotions. I am very motivated for to do well in Paris. Congratulations to Alex for a big battle today. The conditions were difficult. The wind was changing. But I\u2019m happy and I am staying positive,\u201d<\/strong> Djokovic said. \u201cI think in the first and second sets I played really well, but then I missed opportunities and lost a little focus in the third set, but his level was strong. He wasn\u2019t an easy opponent. I had to earn it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nThe match lasted two hours and 26 minutes.<\/p>\n
Novak will take on world no.83 Marton Fucsovics of Hungary next (H2H record 4-0).<\/strong><\/p>\nPhotos: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-time French Open titlist defeated American Aleksandar Kovacevic 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (1) in windy conditions on Philippe Chatrier on Monday, to reach the second round in Paris. He will take on Hungarian Marton Fucsovics next (ATP #83, H2H record 4-0).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":165088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012476,101011211,101010469,101012260,101013338],"class_list":["post-165091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-first-round-en","tag-french-open-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-paris-en","tag-roland-garros-2023-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165091","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=165091"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165101,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165091\/revisions\/165101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}