{"id":55906,"date":"2014-02-24T10:24:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T09:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=55906"},"modified":"2014-02-25T21:53:29","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T20:53:29","slug":"dubai-nole-vs-istomin-in-round-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/dubai-nole-vs-istomin-in-round-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Dubai: Nole vs Istomin in Round 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-55904\" alt=\"Nole protiv Istomina u 1. kolu Dubaija\" src=\"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Dubai_01.jpg\" width=\"590\" height=\"378\" srcset=\"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Dubai_01.jpg 590w, https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Dubai_01-300x192.jpg 300w, https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Dubai_01-267x171.jpg 267w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Defending champion and world no.2 returns to action this week in Dubai where he won the ATP World Tour 500 outdoor event in 2009-11 and 2013. The tournament takes place at the Aviation Club Tennis Centre from February 24 to March 1.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Novak is a top seed. He will begin his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dubaidutyfreetennischampionships.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">2014 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships<\/a> campaign against world no.43 Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan (4-0) on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old Belgrade native could meet either Roberto Bautista Agut or a qualifier in the second round.<\/p>\n<p>His possible opponents in the later stages of the tournament are:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Quarter-finals<\/span>: Mikhail Youzhny (RUS,6)<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Semi-finals<\/span>: Roger Federer (SUI, 4), Dmitry Tursunov (RUS,8)<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Final<\/span>: Juan Martin del Potro (ARG,2), Tomas Berdych (CZE,3), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA,5)<\/p>\n<p>Last year Novak beat Tomas Berdych in the final (7-5, 6-3).<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic is making his eighth appearance (28-3 record), aiming for his fifth crown.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pqQIJ8KXUfo\" height=\"332\" width=\"590\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As a warm-up, Novak teamed up with Carlos Gomez-Herrera of Spain in the doubles competition. They lost to Tomasz Bednarek (POL) and Lukas Dlouhy (CZE) 5-7, 6-1, 5-10.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Getty Images; Video: ATPWorldTour<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novak is making his eighth appearance at the ATP 500 event (28-3 record), aiming for his fifth Dubai Duty Free Championships title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":55904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[133,118,101011387,101012199],"class_list":["post-55906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-defending-champion","tag-draw","tag-dubai-2014-en","tag-uae-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55906","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=55906"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56008,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55906\/revisions\/56008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}