Great stuff for Novak Djokovic!
Even if the Serbian is the world no.2, he got to this title a bit under the radar. In fact most of the attention was on Rafael Nadal and the resurgence of Roger Federer, while Nole was scraping his way to the final (often not playing is very best tennis).
The final was a quality one. Both players were at their best and Nole won just at the photo finish winning just 1 point more than Roger (99 vs. 98).
There were a couple of crucial moments in this match. First we had two decisive breaks in the second game of the first set for Roger (The Swiss won the opener 6-3) and in the 8th game of the 2nd set (Nole won the second set also 6-3). In the decider the Serbian broke Roger again in the 3rd game, but funny enough he failed when he was serving for the match ( 5-4). The third set went to the tie-break, and a great start from Djokovic (3-0) gave him the breaker at 3. Match Stats
Djokovic: I am very proud about this tournament
Nole commented “As I said before the match today, very few points will decide a winner, and that’s what happened. Roger is playing in a very high level…. He just played better than he did in the last 13, 14 months.
I needed to really be in the top of my game and very concentrated the last moment in order to win. That’s what I’ve done. Very proud of my achievements during this tournament.”
Federer: It could have gone either way
Roger was disappointed by the result “It was an interesting end to the match, no doubt, . But I think he played well. At the end he made sure he kept the ball in play and I might have made a few too many errors when it really mattered. But I think he made a crucial sort of 20 minutes, half and hour midway through the second set and third set where things could have gone either way. But credit to him for toughening it out and winning that second set and getting the breaker in the third.”
This is Djokovic’s 42nd title ad the first of the seasonand interesting enough hehas won it while Becker was not around him…