{"id":22101,"date":"2012-03-17T16:34:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T15:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=22101"},"modified":"2012-04-05T23:33:36","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T22:33:36","slug":"novak-falls-to-isner-in-indian-wells-semi-final-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-falls-to-isner-in-indian-wells-semi-final-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak falls to Isner in Indian Wells semi-final battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nole will not defend his Indian Wells title on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The top seed and defending champion lost to 11th seeded American John Isner in three sets 6-7 (7), 6-3, 6-7 (5) in 2 hours and 45 minutes in the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Novak made a break in the third game of the opening set and consolidated it for 3-1 lead. He was serving at 5-4, but was unable to close out the set. Isner broke back and the set went into a tie-breaker. The American won it using his fourth set point for 9-7 in 1 hour.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Belgrade native put the first set behind and responded with composure. A break in the eighth game was enough for him to take the second 6-3 in 38 minutes.<\/p>\n

Nole earned himself a break point in the seventh game of the final third set, but Isner fired a 230km\/h serve to hold. The Australian Open champion saved a match point in the 12th game and two more in a tie-breaker, but the American big server converted his fourth opportunity to advance to his first career ATP World Tour Masters 1000 final.<\/p>\n

He will face either Spaniard Rafael Nadal or Swiss Roger Federer on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“I had in the third set a couple of times 30-all and some chances really where I was in the rally, but he came up with some incredible groundstrokes winners, and that’s it,”<\/strong> said Novak. “I have to shake his hand and congratulate him for the win.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (8-21), double faults (2-0), winners (37-55), unforced errors (20-41), break point conversion (2\/6 \u2013 1\/2), total points won (117-106).<\/p>\n

Novak will next play at the Sony Ericsson Open<\/span><\/a> in Miami where he returns as a defending champion. He defeated Rafael Nadal 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) in last year’s final. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The world no.1 will begin his quest on Saturday, March 24, at 20.00 local time (Sunday at 01.00 CET).<\/p>\n

“It’s still I think a week to my first match, so I’m gonna take some time, regroup. I feel physically well. I think I’m playing equally well. I’m confident ahead of the Miami tournament.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The singles draw will take place on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The top seed and defending champion lost to 11th seeded American John Isner in three sets 6-7 (7), 6-3, 6-7 (5) in 2 hours and 45 minutes in the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012173,1646],"class_list":["post-22101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-indian-wells-2012","tag-isner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101","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=22101"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25236,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101\/revisions\/25236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}