ATP Men's Tennis

Djokovic vs Verdasco at Rome quarterfinals

Novak Djokovic beat Thomaz Bellucci 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters where he will meet Fernando Verdasco, a 64 76 winner over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Djokovic got in 57% of his first serve attempts, but committed half as many unforced errors as Bellucci.

“I was down a break every set and it wasn’t easy to get back on serve,” Djokovic said. “He served well—very accurately—and got a lot of free points.”

“I’ve played a lot of matches against him on different surfaces and I’ve won most of them,” Djokovic said about playing Verdasco.

"He has had a couple of great weeks behind him on clay courts and definitely is one of the best players in the world right now," said Djokovic. "He is physically very strong and he's making less mistakes and he's improved a lot since last year. It's going to be very tough match. I don't think I'm the favourite at all for tomorrow but if I play an aggressive game, then I will have a good chance to win."

Verdasco trailed 1-3 in the first set against Garcia-Lopez, before hitting back to win five of the next six games to secure the set. He squandered a chance to serve for the match at 5-3 in the second set, but recovered to prevail in the ensuing tie-break after just over two hours.


Source ATP