MADRID, 10 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic, number one in the world, made his debut this morning in the Indian Wells tournament (United States), the first Masters 1,000 of the season, with a hard-fought victory in the second round against the Australian Aleksandar Vukic (6-2, 5-7, 6-3), which allows him to meet the Italian Luca Nardi on the way to his sixth title in the Californian desert.
In his 400th victory in an ATP Masters 1,000 and his return to a tournament in which he had not competed since 2019, the first seed had to work hard to defeat his rival who had a better result in the long rallies, with 19 winners from the baseline compared to 13 for ‘Nole’. However, Djokovic won 83% of his first serve points and condemned Vukic to winning only 27% of his second serve points.
The world number one began the duel by breaking his opponent’s serve, and put the first set back on track with another break in the seventh game. Despite everything, Vukic did not give up and managed to level the contest in the second set, in which he took a 3-0 lead before nullifying Djokovic’s response with another break in the last game.
Djokovic found the way from the back of the court and canceled the oceanic tennis player’s forehand in a third set in which he canceled his opponent’s two break balls. He achieved a decisive break in the fifth game, before closing out the match after two hours and 10 minutes.
The Serbian, who had not played since his defeat in the Australian Open semifinals against Jannik Sinner at the end of January, will now face the Italian ‘lucky loser’ Luca Nardi, who defeated the Chinese Zhang Zhizhen (6-3, 3-6, 6-3).