{"id":60839,"date":"2014-08-13T03:32:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T01:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=60839"},"modified":"2014-08-13T20:18:39","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T18:18:39","slug":"nole-beats-simon-in-cincinnati-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/nole-beats-simon-in-cincinnati-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole beats Simon in Cincinnati opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nole<\/p>\n

Top seed Novak Djokovic made a winning start in his bid to capture the Career Golden Masters in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

The Serb battled past world no.31 Gilles Simon of France 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 on Tuesday evening in the second round of the Western & Southern Open<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 27-year-old Belgrade native, a quarter-finalist (l. to Isner) last year, sealed the victory after two hours and 10 minutes of play.<\/p>\n

Novak rallied from a break down in the opening set to take it 6-3 in 29 minutes.<\/p>\n

He was 4-2 up in the second set, but surrendered four games in a row, letting the Frenchman come back into the match.<\/p>\n

Nole failed to convert six break points in the first game of the deciding third set. He managed to capitalise on his chance in the seventh game and saved a break point before winning the clash three games later, improving to a 39-5 W\/L record on the season.<\/p>\n

“I think I did well for the most of the match,”<\/strong> Djokovic said. “End of the second, start of the third wasn’t that great, but I try to take positives from every match. I know I’m not playing at the level yet where I want to be and it’s obvious, but I keep on pushing myself. Every day is a new challenge to try to look out for a better game tomorrow and after tomorrow, and hopefully it’s going to come.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It was working quite well, then suddenly I started making unforced errors, backed up a little bit and he started dominating the rallies. Then it was a pretty even third set up to the end. But again, it’s a fight. I’m just glad I managed to win this one.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (6-5), double faults (3-2), winners (32-19), unforced errors (39-27), total points won (88-86).<\/p>\n

Djokovic is making his 10th straight tournament appearance. A title here would make him the first man to ever win all nine Masters 1000 trophies over the course of a career.<\/p>\n

The world no.1 is also chasing his 20th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy and fifth title of the season. He has finished runner-up in Cincinnati four of the past six years and has a 22-9 tournament record.<\/p>\n

Novak next faces no.16 seed Tommy Robredo who eliminated Sam Querrey. He has a 6-1 career H2H record with the Spaniard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The top seed battled past world no.31 Gilles Simon 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 on Tuesday evening in the second round of the Western & Southern Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":60861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012291,101011267,113,101012292],"class_list":["post-60839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-cincinnati-en","tag-masters-1000-en","tag-second-round","tag-usa-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60839","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=60839"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60875,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60839\/revisions\/60875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}