World No. 1 Novak Djokovic overcame a scare to battle past Tomas Machac in a thrilling first-round match at the Dubai Tennis Championships here on Tuesday.
Djokovic was making his first appearance since winning the Australian Open title and just did enough to win his 13th match of the season after a final set tie-break, winning 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-1).
Djokovic showed a bit of rust with a sizeable unforced error count (28, compared to his opponent’s 17), and he took Machac’s best punches during an unexpectedly lopsided second set. But he gained the upper hand in the end.
“Tomas definitely didn’t play like 130th in the world today,” said Djokovic. “He played great tennis, and he deserves a big round of applause.”
Daniil Medvedev extended his winning streak to 10 matches when he cruised past Italian lucky loser Matteo Arnaldi 6-4, 6-2 to reach the second round. The World No. 7 will next meet Alexander Bublik.
World No. 46 Bublik advanced after Bulgarian qualifier Alexandar Lazarov retired when trailing 1-6, 0-1. Felix Auger-Aliassime earned the victory on his debut here, clawing past American Maxime Cressy 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-3.
Botic van de Zandschulp upset sixth seed Karen Khachanov 7-5, 6-2. Andrey Rublev began his title defence here by spoiling Filip Krajinovic’s birthday when he won 7-5, 6-2 on Monday.
Written with inputs from AP/PTI
