Paris Tournament – Bercy: Novak Djokovic joins Holger Rune in the final

On to the final. Novak Djokovic, defending champion, on Saturday eliminated the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7/4) and thus qualified for his eighth final of the Masters 1000 in Paris where he will face the young Dane Holger Rune. “I started this match very well. Afterwards, he found solutions, he raised his level of play and, at one point, it became difficult for me to find the right shot, ”acknowledged the winner.

The 35-year-old Serb is aiming for a seventh title in the Paris hall, the 39th in Masters 1000 (record), while Rune, 19, reaches the final of a tournament of this importance for the first time in his career. Djokovic remained on seven consecutive victories against Tsitsipas, but the latter was the only player not to have conceded his service of the tournament yet.

The “Djoker” in action

The match started with three shutouts, Djokovic being the first to win an exchange on opposing service, on the occasion of the 14th point of the game. This time, Tsitsipas held his face-off, but he gave up the next two: from 2-2, the Serb fielded five straight games to complete the first set and take a 1-0 lead in the second.

Sign of the domination of the “Djoker” in the first set, he committed only one unforced error (against eleven for Tsitsipas) and scored nine winning strokes (against six for the Greek). Tsitsipas stopped the bleeding by winning his first service game of the second set.

The deciding round

And while Djokovic had won all the points played on his first serve in the first set, his percentage fell to 65% in the second. Having committed twelve unforced errors (against 10 for Tsitsipas), it was this time the Serb who gave up two of his service games and allowed his opponent to equalize at one set everywhere.

In the decisive round, Djokovic twice had two break points (at 1-1 and 4-4), but having failed to materialize, the two players came to the tie-break. Tsitsipas scored the mini-break to lead 4/3, but Djokovic then lined up a four-point run to end the game. “At this stage of my career, these matches are wonderful,” savored the Serb.

source site