{"id":982,"date":"2010-02-28T15:43:41","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T14:43:41","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-04-22T16:51:43","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T15:51:43","slug":"novak-downs-youzhny-defends-dubai-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-downs-youzhny-defends-dubai-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak downs Youzhny, defends Dubai title!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=arhiva src=https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/arhiva\/slike\/TvrdaPodloga\/441.jpg> {nl}{nl}World no.2 Novak Djokovic won his second straight Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships  trophy and defended a title for the first time in his career! He defeated no.7 seed Russian Mikhail Youzhny 7-5, 5-7,  6-3 in 3 hours and 22 minutes.{nl}{nl}Djokovic was leading 7-5, 2-0 on Saturday in rain suspended final. The 22-year-old Serb found himself 15-30 behind on serve in the fifth game, thanks to some attacking play from Youzhny, who won a great rally with a drive volley to get to break point. Novak handed the break to the Russian with an unforced error, but managed to break back immediately for 3-3. The best Serbian tennis player held to go 4-3 up, earned two break points in the eighth game and converted the first to increase his lead. He was serving for the set at 5-3, but hit two unforced errors to go 0-30 down and double faulted to give his opponent two break points. Youzhny  broke back and held to equalise to 5-5. Nole put the pressure on the Russian in the 12th game, earned a break\/set point and capitalised on it to take the set 7-5 with a pass down the line.{nl}{nl}Djokovic opened up the second set on serve and took a 40-15 lead, but then the rain started and the players left court. Play resumed 30 minutes later. Novak won the opening game and made a break for 2-0. At 30-15 for Nole play was suspended again and postponed until 11.00h CET on Sunday.{nl}{nl}Novak easily held for 3-0 lead, but Youzhny won three games in a row to level to 3-3. At 4-3 Djokovic missed a fantastic opportunity to break. The Russian used his chance, made a break and was serving for the set. The defending champion broke back immediately for 5-5, but no.7 seed earned three more break points, broke to love and had a second opportunity to serve for the set! He served out to love to win it 7-5.{nl}{nl}Djokovic was 3-0 up in the third set too, but Misha fought back to equalise to 3-3. The seventh game brought new drama. Nole faced two break points but held for 4-3. The next game was crucial. Djokovic capitalised on his second chance for break and then closed the set and match 6-3.  {nl}{nl}&#8221;This win means the whole world to me. Of course there are always people who are saying he can&#8217;t do it. This is another success in my career that I wasn&#8217;t able to make in the last two years. But now, finally, I did it, and it&#8217;s a big relief. So in the future I just hope I&#8217;ll make a couple more of those. It&#8217;s a big boost because I believe in myself. Even when I play bad, I know I have the abilities&#8230; Today was another good example of how much I believe in myself and how much I fight till the end&#8221;, said Novak.{nl} {nl}The world no.2 will get 500 ATP points and $383,000.{nl}{nl}This is Novak\u2019s seventeenth career title. He\u2019s become the second player in tournament history (since 1993) to win back-to-back titles. Federer won three in a row from 2003-05.{nl}{nl}Djokovic will be heading straight to Belgrade for next weekend&#8217;s Davis Cup World Group first-round match against USA.{nl}{nl}Congratulations Nole!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World no.2 Novak Djokovic won his second straight Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships  trophy and defended a title for the first time in his career! He defeated no.7 seed Russian Mikhail Youzhny 7-5, 5-7,  6-3 in 3 hours and 22 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101010275],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-dubai-2010-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982","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=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28316,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions\/28316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}