{"id":160675,"date":"2021-11-15T18:56:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T19:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=160675"},"modified":"2021-11-15T23:59:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T23:59:30","slug":"djokovic-surpasses-hero-in-record-masterclass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=160675","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic surpasses 'hero' in record masterclass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> extended his winning streak to six matches with a 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over Casper Ruud at the ATP Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following a two-month break after his loss to Daniil Medvedev in the U.S. Open final<\/a>, which ended his pursuit of a calendar-year Grand Slam, the top-ranked Djokovic returned this month and won the Paris Masters.<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s now attempting to match Roger Federer\u2019s record of six titles at the season-ending event for the top eight players.<\/p>\n

The victory gave Djokovic an early lead at the top of the Green Group in round-robin play, with 2018 champion Stefanos Tsitsipas playing Andrey Rublev later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Medvedev and Alexander Zverev won in the Red Group on Sunday as the tournament made its debut in Turin after 12 years in London.<\/p>\n

After the match, Djokovic was presented with the trophy for finishing the year ranked No. 1, a feat he accomplished for a record seventh time \u2014 breaking a tie with childhood idol Pete Sampras.<\/p>\n

In an on-court interview, Djokovic recounted how he fell in love with tennis watching Sampras when he was \u201c4 or 5 years old\u201d and asked his dad to buy him a racket.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/TennisTV\/status\/1460262448360042497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamZagoria\/status\/1457678191364091911?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNow I\u2019m here and I\u2019ve won this (trophy) seven times, one more than (Sampras) \u2014 incredible,\u201d Djokovic told the crowd in Italian. \u201cThe dream continues. I hope to play this great sport for a couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, when asked about his on-court comments, the 34-year-old Djokovic said he doesn\u2019t have a number in mind for how many more years he wants to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to impose a limit to myself at all, because I still enjoy playing tennis, and I really enjoy competition and playing at the highest level," the 20-time Grand Slam champion said. "Being No. 1 in the world, there is no reason for me yet to think about leaving tennis. I really am in a good place at the moment."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ruud, a first-time qualifier, broke serve in the opening game of the match when Djokovic fell to the court and dropped his racket as he changed direction to run down a lob. Djokovic managed to pick his racket back up and hit a weak reply but Ruud then quickly finished the point off.<\/p>\n

A double-fault from Ruud handed Djokovic the break back and evened the first set at 3-3. Djokovic then began holding easily and putting pressure on Ruud\u2019s serve, enabling him to wear the Norwegian down during the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

Helped by fast conditions inside the Pala Alpitour, Djokovic won a near-perfect 20 of 21 points with his first serve in the opening set, and 35 of 39 throughout the match.<\/p>\n

Djokovic served 10 aces and Rudd had nine.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic extended his winning streak to six matches with a 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over Casper Ruud at the ATP Finals. Following a two-month […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160677,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160675\/revisions\/160677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}