First-round matches can be tricky even for the Australian Open champion. World No. 1 Novak Djokovic realised that on Tuesday as Czech qualifier Tomas Machac put him through the wringer. But the top seed played the crunch points better to notch a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 in the first round of the ATP Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship on Tuesday.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/sport/tennis/dubai-tennis-novak-djokovic-survives-stern-test-in-first-round-1.94150239
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Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/sport/tennis/dubai-tennis-novak-djokovic-survives-stern-test-in-first-round-1.94150239
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #tennis #NovakDjokovic
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NewsTranscript
00:00For passing Stephanie Glass the record of now 378 weeks as the world number one.
00:07Well I guess he wouldn't be surprised because he knew.
00:13Of course obviously at that point you know
00:20I dreamt a lot, I dreamt big big dreams and as I mentioned a few minutes ago
00:25that was the biggest dream well I used my visualization I would say imagination pretty
00:32well but you know at that point I couldn't imagine that I would get this far you know
00:39I really believed that I could you know one day become a number one player in the world
00:44but to stay this many weeks in that ranking spot is definitely something that surprised me.
00:54Movement wise I think it was okay, fitness wise not the best that I normally would feel
01:04and I think that also I guess execution of the shots could have been better you know I had some
01:15I guess bigger drops than I would normally have in terms of you know shot making I mean some
01:20uncharacteristic errors you know happening from both hands and I guess you know that's part of
01:27the process of finding the timing, finding the tempo, finding the balance on the court
01:34so you know I wasn't thinking about my leg today which is great it was not bothering me at all
01:39it's great news but you know injury is an injury there's a muscle memory and it plays with your
01:45mind a little bit it plays with your biomechanics with your preparation for the shot execution for
01:50the shot and I do feel a difference definitely comparing to the level that I had and the kind
01:57of execution shots I had in Australia but you know it's not that negative you know of course you know
02:03there's a there's a lot to be to be happy about tonight you know I think the fighting spirit was
02:08there and a tight break was as good as it can be so I'll take it day by day and see how it goes.