Madrid: Coach-less Novak Djokovic’s campaign at the Madrid Open tennis tournament appeared to be ending too soon before the Serbian World No.2 discovered his mojo in the third set to beat a fighting Nicolas Almagro 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 in a second round encounter here Wednesday.
After cruising through the first set at breakneck speed with three breaks off the Spaniard’s serve, Djokovic suddenly lost his composure midway in the second set. Almagro was quick to cash in on the change of tempo and broke the Serbian in the ninth game. He then held his serve easily to close out the set and restore parity.
Worse was to follow with Djokovic losing his serve in the second game of the third and final set. He hit a backhand long and then made an uncharacteristic error at the net to fall behind 0-2 which soon became 3-0 as Almagro held his serve at 15.
However, just when it seemed that the Serb had lost the plot yet again early in the competition, Djokovic hit back. Suddenly his shots had more depth and from 3-5 down in the third he reeled off four games in a row to win the set and match.
“Whew that was close,” Djokovic joked after the end of the match. “But then the first match of any tournament is not easy. It’s good that I came through.”
Meanwhile Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga retired from the event due to a problem in his shoulder, which means Spain’s David Ferrer entered directly to the round of 16. The Spaniard will meet seventh seed Kei Nishikori who subdued the challenge of Diego Schwartzman 1-6, 6-0, 6-4.
Tsonga, who reached the quarterfinals here in 2013, said he felt a pain last week while training and then again at the end of the match against Andrey Kuznetsov.
Big-serving and fifth seed Canadian Milos Raonic, who finished runner-up last week at Istanbul, continued his good form on clay with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Gilles Muller of Belgium. Sixth seed Tomas Berdych also did not have any problems while disposing of Robin Hasse of the Netherlands 7-6(7-5), 6-3.
Meanwhile Nick Kyrgios remained on course for blockbuster third round clash with Rafael Nadal after easily seeing off Ryan Harrison 6-3, 6-3.
Kyrgios and Nadal have only met twice with the Australian making his breakthrough with a four-set win over the 14-time Grand Slam champion at Wimbledon in 2014. Nadal, though, won their only previous meeting on clay at the Rome Masters last year.
In a late night match played Tuesday, top seed Andy Murray also advanced to the third round with an easy 6-3, 6-4 victory over Romanian qualifier Marius Copil.
Agencies
