2023-05-31 22:08:00
“It was a very intense match, especially in the first set,” Djokovic admitted in the first interview on the pitch. In the first round he still had to stretch a lot to win it in the tie-break. “But I wasn’t surprised. Fucsovics is a very good player.”
The Serb continued this to Eurosport: “He played well. I was ahead the whole first set and should have finished it. But hats off to him, how he fought and at what a high level he played has.”
The match was characterized by the very strong wind in Paris these days. “The wind blew very hard from one side. So I had to think of a demo match between Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer in Spain when one side of the pitch was grass and the other side sand. That’s kind of how it felt today – like Bambi on ice on one side and on the other side there was so much sand that it felt like playing in the mud,” said the Serb in the virtual Eurosport studio.
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“You have to adapt. It takes a while. It’s been very windy these days, but it usually calms down here when the sun goes down. That wasn’t the case today. That makes timing difficult.”
Fucsovics played well in the first set
At the beginning of the match, top favorite Djokovic immediately set a high pace and immediately took his opponent’s first service game to pull away to 3-0.
But then Fucsovics found the match better and earned three breakballs at a score of 4: 2 for Djokovic. The Serb, however, scored five times in a row and held his serve.
In Djokovic’s next service game, however, the Hungarian got breakballs number eight and nine and finally Djokovic gave up his service with a double fault for the first time – 5: 4.
Fucsovics then held his serve and following 77 minutes it went into the tie-break, which Djokovic won 7-2 ten minutes later – but not without having to stretch and fight hard.
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In the second set, Djokovic immediately broke through the Hungarian’s serve and repeated it once more in the third game, so that the round was quickly decided. It took 31 minutes for Djokovic to make it 6-0 with a forehand winner.
Djokovic opened the third set once more with a break, but Fucsovics immediately managed the re-break and then made it 2-1.
Djokovic uses his chances better
Until then, the 31-year-old kept up very well, hardly made any more unnecessary mistakes than Djokovic and was mainly behind because he missed too many break chances. He had only used two out of eleven breakballs up to that point, while the number three in the world used five out of eight.
That was exactly what was decisive followingwards: At 2: 2 and 30:30 in the third set, Fucsovics completely missed a smash, giving Djokovic another break chance and the Serb used it immediately – the preliminary decision.
Djokovic and Fucsovics fight with the wind
The Serb then held his service and got the 5: 2 with the next break ball to serve to win the match.
But Fucsovics still didn’t give up, fought back and managed a break, only to serve weakly followingwards and lose as a result: he didn’t serve his first serve three times in a row and so Djokovic got his first match point. The Hungarian fended it off, but match point number two finally sat thanks to an unforced forehand error.
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