Novak Djokovic weathered every blow Steve Darcis tried to–and did–throw at him on Thursday, and the result was a straight-set victory for the top-seeded Serb. Djokovic prevailed 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 after two hours and 17 minutes to set up a third-round meeting with Aljaz Bedene.
The world No. 1 gave back breaks in the first and third sets and also did the same while serving for the second at 5-3. On every occasion, however, he managed to raise his level when it mattered most.
“I’m pleased to get the job done in three sets,” Djokovic said. “But there were things that I definitely didn’t like in my game today; too many unforced errors from the first or second shot in the rally. But credit to Steve for playing a lot of variety and mixing up the pace–very low slice. It’s not easy, because he’s very quick and he anticipates the play very well.
“I would say that all three sets when I was a break up I allowed Steve to come back to those sets and fight for those sets…. I was managing to drop my serve very easily. So hopefully that’s not going to happen in the following rounds. The matches will get tougher. It’s kind of expected at the beginning that you are a bit rusty on the court, and hopefully things will get better.”
Rafael Nadal joined Djokovic in the last 32 by cruising past Facundo Bagnis 6-3, 6-0, 6-3. Nadal struggled just a little bit at the very start of the match and again right at the end, but he was dominant in between. In fact, the No. 4 seed enjoyed a stretch in which he won 17 of 19 games from down 2-0 in the opening set to up 5-1 in the third.
Nadal failed to convert a match point on his own serve at 5-2 before eventually getting broken. But the nine-time French Open champion recovered to break Bagnis without too much trouble and bring an end to the proceedings in one hour and 46 minutes.
It marked the 200th Grand Slam match win of the Spaniard’s career.
“I won two matches with comfortable results,” Nadal commented. But I [can] improve things; it’s obvious, no? At the same time, (it) is true that (I’m) having a very positive start of the tournament. I think I played the way that I had to play to be in the third round.
“So I need to keep playing better and better if I want to keep having chances in the next [rounds], but [I’m] happy the way that I’m playing. Let’s see if I’m able to play the same or a little bit better.”
In the fourth round Nadal will face countryman Marcel Granollers, who led Nicolas Mahut two sets to love when the Frenchman retired because of a left knee knee injury.
Could we skip these matches and go to Djoko-Nadal already???