{"id":64980,"date":"2015-01-08T17:55:30","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T16:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=64980"},"modified":"2015-01-08T23:30:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T22:30:59","slug":"karlovic-stuns-novak-in-doha-quarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/karlovic-stuns-novak-in-doha-quarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Karlovic stuns Novak in Doha quarters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Auto<\/p>\n

World no.1 Novak Djokovic suffered a 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 4-6 defeat to no.7 seed Ivo Karlovic in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open<\/a> quarter-finals on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The match lasted two hours and 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Games went with serve in the opening set. Novak was focused in a tie-breaker and won it in convincing fashion, 7-2.<\/p>\n

The big-serving Croat fought back taking the second set tie-breaker 8-6 to level.<\/p>\n

Djokovic saved a break point in the fifth game of the deciding third set, but Karlovic capitalised on his break point opportunity two games later and went on to win the clash 6-4.<\/p>\n

“He served very well,”<\/strong> Novak said. “But you could expect that. I was coming into the match knowing that I will have very, very few chances. But I was hoping that these conditions and the wind will kind of give me some second-serve opportunities. In these particular matches, one ball can decide a winner, and that was the case. Just played a little bit too defensive in that game. Instead of kind of going through the ball, I just sent the ball back.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (10-19), double faults (2-3), winners (46-49), unforced errors (20-46), total points won (104-107).<\/p>\n

Serbian combination Djokovic\/Krajinovic fell to Spanish\/Argentine pairing of Rafael Nadal and Juan Monaco in the doubles semi-final 6-7 (3), 1-6.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was Novak’s first tournament appearance at the ATP World Tour 250 event in Doha.<\/p>\n

Nole will now head to Melbourne for the first Grand Slam of the season \u2013 the Australian Open<\/a>, which begins on Monday, January 19.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The four-time former titlist finished quarter-finalist to Stanislas Wawrinka in 2014, after a memorable five-set battle (6-2, 4-6, 2-6, 6-3, 7-9).<\/p>\n

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

The top seed suffered a 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 4-6 defeat to seventh-seeded Ivo Karlovic in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open quarter-finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":64973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012178,101011591,101011592,101011403],"class_list":["post-64980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-250-en-2","tag-doha-en","tag-qatar-exxonmobil-open-en","tag-quarterfinal-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64980","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=64980"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64996,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64980\/revisions\/64996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}