Djokovic Downs Dimitrov At Queen’s Club

Novak Djokovic secured his first victory over Top 5 opposition in almost 18 months, defeating World No. 5 Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-1 at the Fever-Tree Championships on Thursday.

Djokovic notched his seventh win in eight FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against the reigning Nitto ATP Finals titlist after 65 minutes, winning eight of the last nine games and 30 of 34 first-serve points.

The 31-year-old, who lifted the doubles title in 2010 (w/Erlich), improves to 8-3 at the Queen’s Club and has now reached the last eight in each of his three most recent tournament appearances. Djokovic advanced to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia semi-finals in May (l. to Nadal) and reached the last eight at Roland Garros (l. to Cecchinato).

“I’m still kind of finding my form,” Djokovic said. “This was a great test, playing against one of the top players in the world, a player that I guess prefers this surface the most. It was a great challenge that I was looking forward to. I was very focused; I was very determined to play my best, especially after my great performance in the first round (d. Millman).”

Both men made strong starts, holding their opening four service games with relative ease. But, from that point forward, Djokovic seized total control.

After holding to 15 for a 5-4 lead, the Serb capitalised on two double faults from Dimitrov, at the start and conclusion of the tenth game, to take a one-set lead.

“I guess I broke his resistance in that 10th game of the first set. He made a couple of crucial double faults that obviously allowed me to get ahead, but I thought I was just making him play in big moments and I served well when I needed to,” Djokovic said. “So it was a very good performance.”

Djokovic went from strength to strength in the second set, breaking serve to 30 in the fourth and sixth games before converting his fourth match point, as Dimitrov’s slice-backhand return floated beyond the baseline.

Djokovic will meet Adrian Mannarino, who won an all-French clash in the final match of the day, 7-6(4), 6-3 against qualifier Julien Benneteau, over one hour and 51 minutes. The Serbian has won both his FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings with Mannarino in straight sets.

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Did You Know?
Gigor Dimitrov has appeared at every edition of the Fever-Tree Championships since 2009. The Bulgarian won the title in 2014, defeating Spain’s Feliciano Lopez in a final-set tie-break.