Nole beat no.46-ranked Radek Stepanek in straight sets, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 in two hours and 10 minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\nNovak made a break in the sixth game of the first singles match. He was serving for the set at 5-3, when Stepanek broke back. Djokovic put his opponent under pressure in the 12th game and converted the first of two set points for 7-5.<\/p>\n
The ATP Finals champion rode the momentum in the second set and won it convincingly with a double break.<\/p>\n
Nole broke the Czech in the ninth game of the third set and then held serve to seal the match and draw a standing ovation from the fans.<\/p>\n
“I tried to be aggressive. He was mixing up the pace. The first set was very close but after that I felt better on the court,”<\/strong> Novak said. “It’s crucial that we have a win in the first match to get ahead in this tie. I am just happy that we are playing at home and that we have a full arena supporting us hopefully all the way to victory.”<\/strong><\/p>\nThe 26-year-old Belgrade native landed 72% of points on his first service, and impressive 100% on second.<\/p>\n
Match statistics<\/span>: aces (4-3), double faults (0-1) winners (21-23), unforced errors (14-20), total points won (93-64).<\/p>\nDusan Lajovic, a late replacement for the injured Janko Tipsarevic, faced Tomas Berdych in the second singles rubber. The experienced Czech recorded a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 win.<\/strong><\/p>\nNenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozoljac lost to Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek in in the doubles action on Saturday (2-6, 4-6, 6-7) to give a 2-1 advantage to the visitors.<\/strong><\/p>\nSerbian no.1 racquet Novak Djokovic has the opportunity to clinch the second point for the home team, as he plays against Tomas Berdych on Sunday at 14:00 CET (H2H 14-2).<\/p>\n
The fifth rubber sees Dusan Lajovic take on Radek Stepanek.<\/p>\n
Team captains have the right to change the players until an hour before the match.<\/p>\n
Photo: Fonet\/AP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serbia needs both wins over Czech Republic on Sunday to win the second Davis Cup crown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":53395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012053,101012423,101010437,101011780],"class_list":["post-53380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-czech-republic","tag-davis-cup-2013-en","tag-final-en","tag-serbia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53380","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=53380"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53462,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53380\/revisions\/53462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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