{"id":80514,"date":"2016-05-11T16:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/?p=80514"},"modified":"2016-05-12T09:38:52","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T07:38:52","slug":"novak-fights-past-robert-in-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-fights-past-robert-in-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak fights past Robert in opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Novak<\/p>\n

Top seed and defending champion Novak Djokovic saved two of three break points he faced on Wednesday to beat French qualifier Stephane Robert 7-5, 7-5 for a place in the Internazionali BNL d’Italia<\/a> third round.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Novak capitalised on three of his five break point opportunities and won nine of 15 points at the net during the one hour, 27-minute clash.<\/p>\n

The world no.103 hit more winners, but also made more unforced errors in the first career meeting between the two.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was an extremely difficult match for several reasons. The conditions were very tough. The player that I played against was very unpredictable with his shots… He was going for some shots that were amazing, and with these windy conditions you don’t get too much rhythm,”<\/strong> Djokovic said. “When it mattered the most, I managed to make him play an extra shot and pull this one through.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/u>: aces (2-4), double faults (1-0), winners (16-33), unforced errors (14-32).<\/p>\n

Nole, the four-time overall winner in Rome, has improved to a 34-2 record on the season.<\/p>\n

The Serbian ace goes on to face ATP #37 Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil (5-0 H2H mark), who eliminated Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 6-3.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Nole opened his Internazionali BNL d’Italia campaign with a 7-5,7-5 win over 35-year-old French qualifier Stephane Robert (ATP #103).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":80508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101012562,101012240,113],"class_list":["post-80514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-internazionali-bnl-ditalia-2016-en","tag-rome-en","tag-second-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80514","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=80514"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80540,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80514\/revisions\/80540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}