{"id":33310,"date":"2021-02-10T09:41:55","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T10:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=33310"},"modified":"2021-02-10T11:45:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T11:45:47","slug":"djokovic-advances-after-tiafoes-late-meltdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=33310","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic advances after Tiafoe's late meltdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

American star Frances Tiafoe<\/a> has been left to rue a crucial lack of concentration which led to his undoing after a brilliant performance against world No.1 Novak Djokovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tiafoe, currently ranked 64th on the men's circuit, gave Djokovic all he could handle on centre court, before the reigning champion pulled away to a 6-3 6-7 (3-7) 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 win.<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> Security called as Novak unleashes on Tiafoe's fans<\/a><\/p>\n

The incident took place in the fourth set with the match delicately placed after Djokovic claimed the all-important third in a tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

With the scores tied at 3-3 and 30-30 on Tiafoe's serve, the American ambled around in lackadaisical fashion and docked of his first serve by chair umpire Damien Dumusois.<\/p>\n

\"Frances<\/p>\n

The decision stunned Tiafoe, who had barely gotten into his service motion by the time the serve clock expired, as he approached Dumusois' chair to plead his case.<\/p>\n

"We've played a whole point and we have to walk to the tunnel," he said.<\/p>\n

"(Djokovic) didn't walk through the middle of the f—–g line. Come on bro, come on man, what are you expecting from me?"<\/p>\n

Dumusois' decision proved to be the straw that broke Tiafoe's resistance, as Djokovic broke the American, before claiming the next two games to take out the fourth set.<\/p>\n

Following his loss, Tiafoe admitted that the time violation called on him "broke the match".<\/p>\n

"Hats off to him, but that was a terrible ending to the match, to such a high-quality match," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Novak<\/p>\n

"Could I have handled it better? Yes. That just broke me. I'm out there battling World No. 1, and like he needs any more help, you know."<\/p>\n

Despite Tiafoe's pleas both during and after the match, American tennis legend Jim Courier laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the 23-year-old.<\/p>\n

"He's not even aware of the clock. He tried to talk his way out of it (but) that was silly," Courier said on Nine's coverage.<\/p>\n

"I love Frances, you're not going to find a bigger Tiafoe fan than me, but he shouldn't have said what he said and he should have been looking at the clock.<\/p>\n

"That is completely on him, just a lack of situational awareness."<\/p>\n

With one American in his rear-view mirror, Djokovic will now adjust his focus onto another, with a match-up against Taylor Fritz on the horizon.<\/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 clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American star Frances Tiafoe has been left to rue a crucial lack of concentration which led to his undoing after a brilliant performance against world […]<\/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\/33310"}],"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=33310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33312,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33310\/revisions\/33312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}