The Serbian tennis ace opened his campaign on Rod Laver Arena with a 6-1, 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over world no.40 Fernando Verdasco in two hours and 20 minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\nNovak stormed through the opening set in 31 minutes, breaking his rival in the second and fourth games.<\/p>\n
The second set was a much closer affair. Verdasco went up a break twice, but the six-time Melbourne titlist fought back to force the tie-break, which he won 7-4.<\/p>\n
Djokovic made two more breaks in the third set to progress at the first Grand Slam event of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started really well. Great first set. Great third set, as well. Second set was a long set with a lot of unforced errors from both sides. It was a gamble, really,\u201d<\/strong> said Novak. \u201cI’m very pleased with the first round, considering I had one of the toughest first-round draws, definitely considering his form, how well he played in Doha. Just overall I’m feeling good about my performance.\u201d<\/strong>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nThe 29-year-old Belgrade native won eight of the 10 net approaches, and 76 per cent of his first serve points, compared to 60 per cent for Verdasco.<\/p>\n
Match statistics<\/u>: aces (2-5), double faults (2-5), winners (24-27), unforced errors (34-56), total points won (115-85).<\/p>\n
Novak goes on to face world no.117 Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan (5-0 H2H), who advanced with a 6-1, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 triumph over qualifier Ivan Dodig (CRO).<\/strong><\/p>\nDjokovic is chasing a record seventh title at Melbourne Park to surpass the mark he shares with Roy Emerson.<\/p>\n
Photo: Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defending champion passed a tough first-round assignment with a 6-1, 7-6, 6-2 victory over Spaniard Fernando Verdasco (ATP #40).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":86548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012630,133,310,101010469,101012051],"class_list":["post-86555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australian-open-2017-en","tag-defending-champion","tag-first-round","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-melbourne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86555","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=86555"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86576,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86555\/revisions\/86576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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