Novak Djokovic played a fifth consecutive match of the week without losing a set or even dropping serve a single time as he beat Borna Coric 6-3, 6-4 in the Shanghai Masters final on Sunday afternoon. Djokovic, who held all 47 of his service games in Shanghai, triumphed after one hour and 36 minutes.
“This was definitely one of the best service weeks that I’ve had in my career,” the Serb said. “I was saying before that I have never played on faster courts here in Shanghai, so this year more than ever I needed a lot of success with the first serves in, and I have had plenty of success with first serves and high per cent of first serves in every match. So obviously that brings me a lot of joy.”
Highlights:
This is record fourth Shanghai title for Djokovic since the tournament began in 2009.
“It’s phenomenal; I’m very proud of it,” the soon-to-be world No. 2 assured. “Obviously the last three, four months have been terrific for me. Not many holes in the game in general, especially this week. Everything worked perfectly.”
Coric’s run included wins over Swiss stars Stan Wawrinka in round one and Roger Federer in the semifinals. The 21-year-old Croat has now defeated every player in the “Big 4” (and “Big 5” counting Wawrinka) except for Djokovic, who is 3-0 in the head-to-head series.
“I thought I was actually playing really well,” Coric assessed. “I’m feeling good on the court. I was not serving particularly well, but that’s also because I think he was returning extremely well. So I was going for a little bit more.
“I’m just happy with the whole week. I think it was a really good week for me, from basically me thinking on Monday morning I’m going to fly out on Monday evening after my first match [against Stan Wawrinka] to playing my first Masters 1000 final. It’s awesome. I need to take only positives from this week.”
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too good
Djoko too good for Coric but I’ve to say it’s quite a boring match; there’re not much varieties played, just baseline rallies all the time, not unlike the Sasha/Djoko SF match.
Fed vs Djoko would be a more interesting match when Fed would bring in all sorts of varieties in his play to counter this Djoko. This Shanghai tournament has shown that so many of the players are so one dimensional, only playing from the baseline and looking clueless when forced to play at the net.
I see some hope in the young gen guys though, the likes of Tsitsipas and Shapo, who are not afraid to move to the net as and when they deem appropriate to do so.
Coric played like a junior Djoko hence he’s not able to beat Djoko. Too bad he couldn’t beat Djoko at MC this year even though he kept the score close (7-6,7-5), Coric himself was also coming back from injury if I’m not wrong. He has a particularly lopsided H2H vs Cilic, ie 0-7 adv Cilic.
It appears that Novak has come back with a vengeance. He has been on quite a run.
From what I saw, Coric played attacking tennis to beat Federer. Opposite of what I expected.
smart
fed lost on purpose, didnt want to play joker. simple
Right. Fed’s made a career out of ducking tough matches. He lost ON PURPOSE to Anderson so he wouldn’t have to face Djokovic in the Wimbly final. He lost to John Millman for heaven’s sake, just to avoid Djokovic! Disgraceful! In 2017 he lost to a sick DelPotro just to avoid Nadal. (And if you actually believe this nonsense I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn for sale.)
You can quit worrying about the Djoko-Fed head to head. Novak will have future opportunities.
I don’t get how you can say this when he’s played Djokovic 46 times. If he’s been making a career out of dodging Djokovic, then he’s done a really bad job of it!!
That was sarcasm, Benny. Fed is avoiding clay, but certainly not dodging/avoiding *any* player and it’s nonsense to say he is.
Did coric had a little chance?didnt think so
Congrats to Joker….he’s back in top form….London should be fun to watch!