Novak Djokovic on Monday continued his hot early season form, cruising past Tunisian wild-card Malek Jaziri 6-1, 6-2 into the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The top seed and four-time champion made short work of Jaziri, who is ranked 260th in the world.
Djokovic owns a perfect 14-0 record this season after winning a title for Serbia at the ATP Cup followed by a record-extending eighth Australian Open crown.
Photo: AFP
The world No. 1 crashed seven aces past Jaziri in a match that lasted little more than an hour.
“A one-hour match... I did everything as well as I imagined it to be for the first match. Of course, there’s things that always can be improved, things that can be better, but I have to be satisfied with the performance,” Djokovic said.
He reeled off the opening set in less than half an hour, broke twice in the second set and served out the win on his first match point.
The Serbian next faces Philipp Kohlschreiber after the German veteran advanced past Egyptian Mohamed Safwat 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.
“It’s a great way to start out the tournament,” Djokovic said, who is playing the event for the first time since 2016. “I missed playing here. I really enjoy it. I enjoy night sessions. Philipp can deliver his best game in these kind of matches. He’s very capable. I’ll try to be ready.”
French third seed Gael Monfils, winner of back to back events this month in Montpellier, France, and Rotterdam, Netherlands, beat Hungarian Marton Fucsovics 6-4, 7-5 in a match that lasted two hours.
“It was a battle for me, I didn’t play my best and I’m disappointed about that,” Monfils said. “I was just running to cover the court, I still believed even if I was playing poorly. I’m not so happy about tonight.”
Earlier, Karen Khachanov earned a 7-6 (7/2), 6-1 win over Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin to reach the second round.
The world No. 17, who lives in Dubai, twice hit back from a break down in the opening set, before cruising through the second.
“The first round is pretty tough, I always try to get used to it,” Khachanov said. “I’m really happy I could get the win. I have another match, another opportunity to play better, like always, to improve.”
In yesterday’s early first-round matches, Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun fell to a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 loss to Japanese qualifier Yasutaka Uchiyama in 1 hour, 50 minutes.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier