Despite his absence from the stadiums for about a month before his participation in the Dubai Tennis Championships, the veteran Serbian star, Novak Djokovic, seemed close to his best in his second match in the competition.
Djokovic, ranked first in the world, advanced to the quarter-finals of the Dubai Championships, after his easy victory over Dutchman Talon Grikspur, 6/2, 6/3, today, Wednesday, to reach the quarter-finals, with 500 points.
Despite Djokovic’s difficult victory in the first round of the tournament over Czech Tomas Machak, with two sets to one, yesterday, Tuesday, he imposed absolute control over his match with Grikspur, to settle the match in just 82 minutes.
“It was a great evening for me tonight,” Djokovic, 35, said in an on-court interview. “Yesterday I had to work hard.”
to win. But tonight I think I was sharp. I definitely played better than I did last night.”
And the official website of the Professional Tennis Players Association quoted Djokic’s remarks, who said, “Maybe the three or four games were not the best to end the match, but I was able to direct a good serve in the end.”
“I am very happy with the performance and the way I felt on the field, and I hope things will go in the right direction tomorrow,” he added.
With this victory, Djokovic achieved his second victory in his direct confrontations with Grexport, after he had previously defeated his Dutch opponent in three clean sets in the only meeting that took place between them at the US Open (Flushing Meadows), within the Grand Slam tournaments, in 2021.
Djokovic set up a quarter-final date with Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, who beat Russian Pavel Kotov 7/5, 6/1.
Yesterday, Monday, Djokovic began his 378th week at the top of the world rankings for professional tennis players, surpassing the record of retired German Steffi Graf, as the most professional tennis professional at the top of the world rankings.
And the Russian Andrei Rublev continued the campaign to defend his title, which he crowned last season, after he advanced to the quarter-finals as well, after defeating Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich with great difficulty.
Rublev needed to go through 3 sets to win Davidovich’s hurdle, after defeating him 6/1, 6/7, 6/7.
German Alexander Zverev qualified for the same round, by defeating Australian Christoph Connell 7/5, 6/4, while Dutchman Bottic van de Zandsholb defeated Swede Mikael Passer, 3/6, 6/3, 6/3.
The Italian Lorenzo Sonego caught up with the qualifiers for the quarter-finals, after he overthrew Canadian Felix Oj Aliazime, defeating him 6/7, 6/4.
Russian Andrei Medvedev defeated Kazakh Alexander Bublik 6/4, 6/2, and Croatian Borna Coric defeated Australian Tanasi Kokkinakis, 6/7, 6/3, 7/5 in a marathon match.
The post Dubai Championships.. Djokovic reaches the 8th round appeared first on Gatto Presss.