{"id":888,"date":"2009-09-04T02:11:33","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T01:11:33","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-04-17T15:12:23","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T14:12:23","slug":"novak-downs-ball-third-round-vs-witten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-downs-ball-third-round-vs-witten\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak downs Ball! Third round vs Witten!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=arhiva src=https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/arhiva\/slike\/TvrdaPodloga\/283.jpg> {nl}{nl}The best Serbian tennis player defeated world no.155 Australian qualifier Carsten Ball in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 49 minutes to reach the US Open third round.{nl}{nl}Novak was dominant from the very beginning of the match. He played aggressively, and Ball could not find a solution for his game. The Australian made many unforced errors, and his best weapon, his powerful serve, let him down.{nl}{nl}Djokovic broke Ball\u2019s service in the fourth game of the match with a crosscourt backhand winner and then held to increase his lead to 4-1. He closed the set 6-3 in less than 30 minutes.{nl}{nl}A break in the third game was enough for Novak to take the second set 6-4.{nl}{nl}The 22-year old Serb held in the eighth game of the third set to level the score. Ball made a double fault at deuce to hand Djokovic a break point. Nole sealed the break at the third attempt and then served it out for 6-4 to book his place in the third round.{nl}{nl}Djokovic served 3 aces to Ball\u2019s 9, and made 1 double fault to his opponent\u2019s 7.{nl}Novak hit 22 winners to Ball\u2019s 29 and made 18 unforced errors, 27 less than the Australian.{nl}The Serb capitalised on 3 of his 16 chances for break, while Ball failed to convert the only break point he had.{nl}{nl}Novak after the match:{nl}{nl}\u2018It&#8217;s always hard to predict what is going to expect you in the match against a guy who you don&#8217;t know basically. And I haven&#8217;t seen any of his matches. I haven&#8217;t been introduced to his game. So I didn&#8217;t know what to expect. I knew he&#8217;s a big guy with a big serve, lefty. That&#8217;s why I needed to really stay focused and try to read his game and try to be able to recognize the positions and his disadvantages.\u2019{nl}{nl}\u2018Physically I feel great. I feel ready. I feel confident on the court. Mentally motivated and willing to do more. Just have a big desire to perform good and to win the matches. And I think you could see that on the court. I just try to push myself always to the limit. Sometimes I&#8217;m perfectionist, I want everything to go well. I always try to give 100% on the court. So this is what I expect from myself in the first place and upcoming matches. And hopefully, like in the past couple years, I can do well.\u2019{nl}{nl}{nl}Nole will play against world no.276 qualifier Jesse Witten in the third round. The American beat Argentine Maximo Gonzalez in four sets 6-7(3), 6-4, 7-5, 6-2.{nl}{nl}The two players have never play against eachother before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The best Serbian tennis player defeated world no.155 Australian qualifier Carsten Ball in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 49 minutes to reach the US Open third round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101010284],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-us-open-2009-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27062,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions\/27062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}