{"id":65853,"date":"2015-02-01T13:33:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T12:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=65853"},"modified":"2015-02-02T04:29:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T03:29:23","slug":"novak-beats-murray-to-clinch-fifth-australian-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-beats-murray-to-clinch-fifth-australian-open-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak makes history, beats Murray to clinch fifth Australian Open title!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Magi\u010dni<\/p>\n

Brilliant Novak became the first man in Open Era to capture five Australian Open<\/a> titles as he defeated close friend and long-time rival Andy Murray in four sets on Rod Laver Arena on Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The world no.1 beat sixth-seeded Scot 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-0 to win his eighth Grand Slam trophy, joining Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi in fifth place on the Open Era major titles list.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pair squared off for the 24th time. Djokovic now holds a 16-8 ATP Head2Head edge.<\/p>\n

Novak also beat Murray in the 2011 and 2013 Australian Open final. The victory marks his 50th match win at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n

It was another remarkable match that lasted three hours and 39 minutes.<\/p>\n

The first set was a 72-minute marathon that proved why Nole and Andy are among the best athletes in the world. Novak lead by a break twice, but Murray fought back to force a tie-breaker. Djokovic prevailed 7-5 to move ahead.<\/p>\n

The second set was even longer than the opener. It lasted 80 minutes. After surrendering a break in the second game, Novak broke twice to go 4-2 up. The Dunblane native came back once again and went on to win a tie-breaker 7-4.<\/p>\n

Determined Novak rallied from 0-2 down in the third set to take it 6-3 in 39 minutes.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old from Belgrade raced to a 6-0 in the fourth set, extending his winning streak against Top 10 opponents to 10 matches. This trophy is his 49th career singles title.<\/p>\n

“I think the willpower I had on the court today took me to where I am now,”<\/strong> Novak said. “Winning the eighth Grand Slam title and being mentioned in the elite group of legends in our sport is a huge privilege and honour. I can’t say how proud I am. It’s going to serve definitely as a great deal of inspiration for the rest of my career.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Auto<\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (8-10), double faults (1-3), winners (53-41), unforced errors (40-49), total points won (136-118).<\/p>\n

Novak is just one title short of legend Roy Emerson, the AO champion of 1961, 1963-67, who presented him with the trophy.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m so privileged and honoured and grateful to be standing here as a champion for the fifth time, to be in an elite group of players with Sir Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and all the legends of the sport,\u201d<\/strong> said the Serbian star.<\/p>\n

With this remarkable win, Nole consolidated his no.1 ranking with 3,800 points ahead of Roger Federer.<\/p>\n

Next stop for Djokovic will be the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships from February 23-28. The four-time former titlist lost to Federer in the semi-finals last year.<\/p>\n

Photo: Getty Images (1), Michael Babic (2)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world no.1 beat no.6 seed 7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-0 to win an eighth major, joining Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi in fifth place on the Open Era major titles list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":65882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101011240,101011597,101011061,101010437,101010469,101012415,101011456],"class_list":["post-65853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-andy-murray-en","tag-australian-open-2015-en","tag-champion-en","tag-final-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-melbourne-en","tag-title-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65853","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=65853"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66065,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65853\/revisions\/66065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}