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From a arrange and in management, Novak seemed set for a cushty Sunday night on the Australian Open.
Nonetheless, the Serbian star survived a problem to beat the 18-year-old Croat Dino Prizmic 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 and reached the second spherical in Melbourne for the seventeenth time in 19 appearances.
Within the pair’s first ATP H2H assembly, Djokovic began properly. He broke twice to race to a one set lead.
The second set was extra aggressive. The gamers had exchanged breaks as soon as earlier than the 2023 Roland Garros Junior champion clinched the tie-break to degree the competition.
The third set noticed 5 breaks of serve. The Croatian hope broke on two events, whereas the 10-time titlist transformed his break level probabilities 3 times.
Djokovic was in management originally of the fourth set. He stormed to a 4-0 lead earlier than Prizmic managed to take one break again. Novak sealed the victory 4 video games later, after 4 hours of play.
“He deserved each applause, each credit score that he bought tonight,” mentioned Novak after Prizmic left the court docket to a standing ovation from the Melbourne crowd. “He’s a tremendous participant, so mature for his age and he dealt with himself on the court docket extremely properly. It might simply have been his match as properly. He was a break up within the third, he fought despite the fact that he was 0-4 and a break level down within the fourth set. He confirmed nice mentality and resilience. He actually made me run for my cash tonight.”
Match statistics: aces (11-7), double faults (1-7), winners (40-31), unforced errors (49-42), whole factors gained (139-113).
Within the second spherical on Wednesday, Djokovic will play in opposition to Alexei Popyrin (AUS).
Picture: AP
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