{"id":72350,"date":"2015-08-20T00:52:56","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T22:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=72350"},"modified":"2015-08-20T08:13:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-20T06:13:02","slug":"nole-wins-cincinnati-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/nole-wins-cincinnati-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole wins Cincinnati opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CINCINNATI,<\/p>\n

World no.1 and four-time Cincinnati Masters runner-up Novak Djokovic opened his 2015 Western & Southern Open<\/a> campaign on Wednesday with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over no.42-ranked Benoit Paire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rain-interrupted match lasted one hour and 40 minutes. It was the first career encounter between the two players.<\/p>\n

Novak was broken in the seventh game, but he broke back immediately to level at 4-all. The top-seeded Serbian star had failed to convert seven break\/set points in the 15-minute tenth game, before capitalising on his chance two games later.<\/p>\n

Djokovic earned a 2-0 lead in the second set. The Frenchman fought back to level, but Nole won the next four games to seal the win.<\/p>\n

“The instructions I got from my coach was ‘expect the unexpected,’ and that was the case,”<\/strong> said Novak. “He hits a lot of dropshots. He’s got a great backhand. He’s got a good serve. You couldn’t really predict what kind of shot comes your way, a slow spin ball or a fast flat one. So I had to stay alert all the time.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/u>: aces (1-4), double faults (1-3), winners (17-33), unforced errors (19-41), total points won (83-69).<\/p>\n

Novak will meet no.13 seed David Goffin for a place in the quarter-finals (H2H 2-0). The Belgian eliminated Spain’s Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 7-6 (4) earlier in the day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nole improved to a 53-4 record on the season, which includes six titles. The 28-year-old Belgrade native is seeking his first Cincinnati title. It is the only ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament he has not won.<\/p>\n

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

Novak beat world no.42 Benoit Paire 7-5, 6-2 on Wednesday to move into the Western & Southern Open last 16. He next faces David Goffin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":72347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012291,101011202,113],"class_list":["post-72350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-cincinnati-en","tag-masters-en","tag-second-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72350","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=72350"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72363,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72350\/revisions\/72363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}