{"id":29454,"date":"2012-05-17T13:44:40","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T12:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=29454"},"modified":"2012-06-07T09:45:42","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T08:45:42","slug":"novak-battles-past-monaco-for-qf-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-battles-past-monaco-for-qf-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak battles into quarter-finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

World no.1 Novak Djokovic came back from a set and a break down to win his third round clash with no.14 seed Juan Monaco 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia<\/a> on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The two-time Rome champion needed two hours and 19 minutes to get by the Argentine in difficult windy conditions.<\/p>\n

Juan Monaco got the opening break of the match in the fifth game and and kept the advantage to take the first set 6-4 in 55 minutes.<\/p>\n

It took Novak some time to adjust to the conditions and to find his rhythm. The Argentine was playing really well. He made a break in the third game of the second set. Djokovic found himself in real trouble being down a set and a break, but showed his heart of a champion and broke back immediately. Moreover, he made a triple break to win the set 6-2.<\/p>\n

The \u00a0deciding third set went on serve until the eighth game when the 24-year-old Serbian star broke his opponent for 5-3 lead. He closed out the set and match 6-3\u00a0to reach the last eight at the Foro Italico.<\/p>\n

“Mental strength is what is needed, especially when you are playing against a player who has already won two tournaments on this surface this year already and is playing with confidence,”<\/strong> Novak said. “There are many thoughts \u00a0that go through your head when you are down a set but you try and focus and think positive… I have enough experience to know what to do and I used it today.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (3-0), double faults (0-2), winners (16-17), unforced errors (40-48), total points won (87-74).<\/p>\n

In the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event quarter-finals, Djokovic will meet no.5 seed Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who beat Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nole will look to level their H2H record when they meet for the tenth time on Friday.<\/p>\n

Photo: Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two-time Rome champion continued his quest to defend title with a hard-fought 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Juan Monaco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":29447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29454","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=29454"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29462,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29454\/revisions\/29462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}