Nole is one win shy of his one thousandth profession victory.
With a fully good efficiency, prime seed Novak Djokovic secured a spot within the Rome Masters semi-final after beating impressed Felix Auger-Aliassime in two tight units on Friday night.
The Serbian star continued the search for his sixth trophy on the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, recording a hard-fought 7-5, 7-6 (1) win over the 21-year-old Canadian in two hours and 9 minutes.
It was the pair’s first ATP Tour H2H encounter.
Gorgeous degree of tennis and a superb match from each gamers. Novak broke first to seize a 5-3 lead, however didn’t serve out the opening set. Auger-Aliassime fought again, however the world no.1 finally closed out the primary set battle three video games later.
Novak was 5-2 up within the second set earlier than permitting his Canadian rival to interrupt again once more. Regardless of nice resistance within the thrilling contest, Felix couldn’t match Djokovic’s impeccable recreation. Nole performed a flawless tie-break to wrap up the match.
“I assumed it was high-level tennis,” Djokovic mentioned in his post-match interview. “He did ask me to lift the extent and I needed to play constantly properly. I assumed I may have completed the job earlier… however credit score to Felix for preventing again. Wonderful ambiance as properly tonight. He’s bought a deadly serve, actually… He’s hitting his spots within the field extremely properly with the serve, and it was not simple for me in any respect to return. He’s additionally returning properly, he’s shifting properly. He’s an entire participant.”
Match statistics: aces (4-11), double faults (0-3), winners (21-27), unforced errors (17-23), whole factors received (82-68).
Novak will face Casper Ruud in a rematch of the 2020 Rome semi-finals (Saturday at 19:30 CET). In addition they met within the 2021 Nitto ATP Finals in Torino. The Belgrade native received each matches in straight units.
Earlier within the day, the fifth seed from Norway claimed his place within the semi-finals with a 7-6, 7-5 win over Denis Shapovalov.
Looking forward to the following problem, Nole mentioned: “Nice high quality opponent once more. Clay-court specialist, however he has improved quite a bit in different surfaces, performed the ultimate of Miami this yr. Only a very onerous employee, good man. We practise quite a bit and get alongside properly off the courtroom. Tomorrow clearly on the courtroom we need to win in opposition to one another, little doubt… Hopefully I can play in addition to I did tonight.”
Photograph: Profimedia
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