Much to the surprise of many, Dusan Lajovic defeated Novak Djokovic for the first time in his career.
\nThe winner of the quarter-finals of the Srpska Open tournament failed to outplay Djokovic in the
\nprevious two matches but got lucky this time. This is the biggest Lajovic\u2019s triumph in his career so far,<\/p>\n
“I felt comfortable on my serve and that added to my confidence during points. I\u2019ve mixed my serve. I
\nnoticed he was uncomfortable with return, he didn\u2019t know what to do exactly. I was lucky enough to
\nrescue some break points in difficult moments. In addition, I believe I was holding up well when the
\nmatch got stressful, better than expected, and that\u2019s what decided the match. There were many tense
\nmoments but I managed to play my best tennis when I needed it the most\u201d, said Lajovic.
\nHe has also commented on his friendship with Djokovic.
\n"I\u2019ve seen Novak for the first time when I was nine and we\u2019ve been through a lot together, we
\npracticed together on many occasions. Anyhow, I enjoyed playing this match. It doesn\u2019t matter if I won
\nor I lost. I would like to add that local crowds were phenomenal, more supportive of Djokovic, but that
\nonly encouraged me\u201d.
\nLajovic didn\u2019t want to analyse their previous duels.
\n“That somehow always manages to affect new matches with players you\u2019ve played against in the
\npast. You always carry that notion at the back of your mind. I\u2019ve tried to discern what can be positive
\nand what would be the negative side of analyses of previous matches. It can\u2019t do you much good
\nbecause back then I believed I didn\u2019t stand a chance and that I couldn\u2019t play at the same level as him.
\nToday I tried to think only about my next step. I believe that\u2019s the hardest thing to do during the match,
\nbut once you do it, it seems simple. In my opinion, an important thing today was that I felt that I did not
\nallow the tension to burden me, to overcome me, I would manage to eliminate the tension I was
\nfeeling and not feel the same tension during the next point. That made a huge difference\u201d.
\nThe victory against the best tennis player in the world boosts confidence but he doesn\u2019t know what
\nwill this victory mean for his future.
\n“This is the greatest victory in my career so far. The first triumph against someone like Novak, Roger
\nor Rafa. It\u2019s not the same kind of victory as other victories. It is true that I defeated second seed Daniil
\nMedvedev once in 2019, but that\u2019s not the same as this. It\u2019s difficult to foresee the future at this
\nmoment. I\u2019m trying to stay in the moment but this victory adds to your confidence, when you know you
\ncan achieve something like this. I believe that it will most certainly serve as an encouragement for
\nfuture matches against tennis players of this rank\u201d.
\nHe also commented on the final moments of the match against Djokovic.
\n\u201cHonestly, the only thing I was thinking about during tie-break was to try to win my two serves. When I
\nwon the first point at 6:3 I was thinking along the lines of \u2018OK. let\u2019s win this point now and whatever
\nwill be, will be\u2019. I believe that I got lucky there at 6:6, I\u2019m not sure if that smash was going in or out. I
\nfelt as if I were losing control during the entire tie-break, and when I was back at 6:6, then I felt I might
\nhave a chance. When we played the match point, I told myself to play the point to the end without
\nfoolish decisions; if it the rally should mean 30 shots, then let it be\u201d, Lajovic was honest in his
\ncomments on the final moments of the match\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much to the surprise of many, Dusan Lajovic defeated Novak Djokovic for the first time in his career. The winner of the quarter-finals of the Srpska Open tournament failed to outplay Djokovic in the previous two matches but got lucky this time. This is the biggest Lajovic\u2019s triumph in his career so far, “I felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/srpskaopen.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}