{"id":78530,"date":"2016-03-06T18:36:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T17:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/?p=78530"},"modified":"2016-03-06T23:55:07","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T22:55:07","slug":"nole-fights-past-kukushkin-to-force-a-decider-in-belgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/nole-fights-past-kukushkin-to-force-a-decider-in-belgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole and Viktor propel Serbia into Davis Cup quarter-final!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Srbija<\/p>\n

Serbia is through to the Davis Cup quarter-final after 3-2 win!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Novak dug deep to see off Mikhail Kukushkin and pull Serbia level at 2-2 in their Davis Cup by BNP Paribas World Group<\/a> first round tie against Kazakhstan at Belgrade’s Aleksandar Nikolic Arena (Pionir Hall) on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The world no.1 twice fought back from a set down to win a gruelling five-setter 6-7 (6), 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in three minutes shy of five hours.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kukushkin took the first set on a tie-breaker after 74 minutes of play, but Novak battled back to take the second in 80 minutes.<\/p>\n

The Kazakh raced to a 4-1 lead in the third set with a double break. Nole broke back once, but the Volgograd native finished off the set to edge in front once again.<\/p>\n

Nole found another gear to win the fourth set 6-3 and level the contest at two sets all, setting up an enthralling climax.<\/p>\n

The momentum was with Novak in the deciding fifth set. He broke twice to win the battle, showing true grit and determination, and heart of a champion, as many times before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to congratulate my opponent for a fantastic performance and he would have been a worthy winner too. He was very consistent from the baseline while I have been struggling for fitness the last few days,\u201d<\/strong> said Djokovic. \u201cThe fans were fantastic and their support got me out of trouble at key moments in the match. I was in bad shape after the third set but fortunately I pulled through and won. My body told me several times during the match that it\u2019s had enough but with this crowd behind me, my heart and mind prevailed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Statistics<\/u>: aces (19-7), double faults (12-2), winners (37-25), unforced errors (94-95), total points won (185-165).<\/p>\n

Viktor Troicki brought a deciding third point to Serbia with a 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 win over Aleksandr Nedovyesov.\u00a0<\/strong>The 2010 champions will host 2015 title holders Great Britain in the Davis Cup quarters on July 15-17.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The 2010 champions will host 2015 title holders Great Britain in the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas World Group quarter-finals on July 15-17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":78567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101011773,101012473,310,908,101011780,778],"class_list":["post-78530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-belgrade","tag-davis-cup-2016-en","tag-first-round","tag-kazakhstan","tag-serbia","tag-world-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78530","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=78530"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78569,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78530\/revisions\/78569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}