Novak Djokovic defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas after two very tight sets to claim the 42nd win of his career at the ATP Finals, starting his bid at this year’s event with a right hand.

The 35-year-old Serb claimed the first of five wins he is aiming for this week to take his sixth title at the event to overtake Roger Federer at the top of the all-time list and make history once again.

Although Tsitsipas upped the stakes in the second set of their encounter on Monday evening (11/14) in Turin, Nole was cool enough to win the tie-break and with 6-4, 7-6(4)to “end” his tournament premiere with the victory in the big derby of the 1st game day of the red group.

It was the Serb’s second win over the 24-year-old Greek in just nine days and confirmed Djokovic is in excellent form despite losing the Paris Masters title to Holger Rooney.

Against Tsitsipas, as he did in their match in Paris a few days ago, he showed impressive stability behind serve and was barely threatened by Stefanos before managing to secure his 7th straight H2H win between them.

The 21 Grand Slam title holder won 50/63 points behind serve to save his opponent’s lone break point in game 4 of set 2 to go 1-2. That was the only moment Tsitsipas Djokovic could really worry in the Serb’s service game.

Not that the former No. 1 and current No. 8 tennis player in the world was particularly dangerous in his own opening games, but he took advantage of Tsitsipas’ ‘deaf’ start to the match and earned his only break on his first chance in the first game of the game and from there he controlled the game and set his pace.

It was a game that would be judged in detail. The Greek champions didn’t start well against their much more experienced opponent, smelling blood and taking the lead from the dressing room.

If you have your back against the wall against Djokovic very early on, then the room for reactions is minimal. Although Tsitsipas played stable and efficient tennis in the second set, it wasn’t enough to give him the equalizer and get “on fire” in the premiere derby.

Nole wasn’t worried that the 5-1 tie-break became a 5-4 in the second set and with two superb serves he finished the job after a set in which the two tennis players served exemplary.

The winner ended the match with 33 winners and 12 unforced errors, while Tsitsipas made many more unforced errors, almost twice as many (22) and a few fewer winners than the Serb (24).

A few hours after the defeat of last year’s finalist Daniil Medvedev, he lost on his debut in Italy and the 2019 champion and No. 2 of this year’s table Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fight between them on Wednesday (11/16), which takes on the character of the final , as most likely the loser will go home early!

Djokovic meets Andrei Rublev in the other match of Round 2, with the winner qualifying for the ‘4’ of the competition.

Source: Tennis24