Nishikori, who has won four of his past five matches against top-10 players in majors and has yet to drop a set through four rounds, knows it's only going to get more difficult against Djokovic.
In 2012, Nishikori lost to Andy Murray and last year to Stan Wawrinka. He also reached the round of eight for the third time. Yeah, like I said, looking forward to play next one."įor the first time in his career, Nishikori has won consecutive matches against seeded players at the Australian Open. You know, even I think play four or five sets, I should be OK, especially live close. "It's great to finish straight sets always, especially Grand Slam is two weeks, so it's long time," Nishikori said. Nishikori, a step faster throughout the encounter, hit 31 winners to take down the 2008 runner-up at Melbourne Park.
Sometimes you have a brain freeze, if I can call it that way."Įarlier, seventh-seeded Kei Nishikori became the first player to reach the round of eight with a routine 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 win against No. Then you're trying to cut down on the length of the rallies, go for a winner or go for a drop shot. "When you're playing someone like Simon, he senses that and he makes you play an extra shot. "It's not easy when you're not feeling the ball well and when you're not moving that great," Djokovic said. "Hate to say it, but you're absolutely right," Djokovic said, drawing laughter from the crowd. He was seen multiple times on the changeover chair berating himself in a foreign language.ĭjokovic did learn an important lesson: As he was walking off the court, a fan yelled out, "No more drop shots!" Throughout the match, he struggled to contain his frustration, often sagging his shoulders and peering at his camp. It was perhaps as subdued as he was in the entire encounter. Two games later, Djokovic mercifully ended the match with an open-court backhand winner.ĭjokovic showed no emotion. In the fifth, exactly 4 hours, 30 minutes into the match, with Djokovic up 5-2 and pulling away, he finally hit his 100th unforced error, yet another backhand that missed wide. "You don't want to know," Djokovic said to former player and Channel 7 analyst Jim Courier during the on-court interview.
What did Djokovic say to himself at that point? In the ultra-competitive fourth set, Simon broke Djokovic in the ninth game, thanks to a backhand error from Djokovic, and then closed out the frame on yet another blunder from the Serb. When it concluded, he went to the sidelines to change his tattered shoes. It eventually went to a tiebreaker, which the Frenchman dominated, snapping Djokovic's streak of 26 straight victorious sets.ĭjokovic rebounded by taking the third. With game point at 4-4, Simon rushed the net and, with his arms fully extended, flicked an impossible one-handed crosscourt winner. How tense was it? At 3-3 in the first frame, Simon overcooked a forehand by just inches after an extended rally, and Djokovic thrust his arms skyward, exulting as if he had won the tournament. By comparison, Serena Williams' third-round match took 44 minutes. "He's been around for years and beaten the big players on this stage. "He's a counterpuncher, one of the best in the game, if not the best," Djokovic said of Simon. Simon avoided going for outright winners, instead opting to extend rallies with off-pace groundstrokes down the middle of the court, waiting for Djokovic to miss. Fifty-two points into the encounter, Simon had not hit a single winner, yet the Frenchman had Djokovic completely flummoxed. This battle was an epic struggle from the outset. I'm going to make sure that I decrease that number at least more than half and hope for the best."įor the first time this fortnight, the day session bled into the evening, pushing back the start of the Carla Suarez Navarro- Daria Gavrilova match. I'm aggressive but still like to construct the point. A hundred unforced errors for a match is really tremendous for me, my style of the game. As I said, I don't think it can get much worse than this. It's probably one out of 40, very low percentage. "It would be interesting to see how many drop shot points I won," Djokovic said. 1 closed out Gilles Simon 6-3, 6-7 (1), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in a draining 4 hours, 32 minutes to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals.
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