Nine meetings, one result nobody expected
Jan-Lennard Struff had lost all eight of his previous matches against Novak Djokovic and had taken only one set off him in the process. On Thursday night in Basel, in the second round of the ATP 500, he won the ninth, 6-7 (4), 7-5, 7-6 (5).
The surface played fast and the match followed it. Struff hit 66 winners to Djokovic’s 43, and neither player gave up much ground on serve. Djokovic created six break points and converted none, which in the end decided it.
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The game Djokovic would like back
The turning point came at 6-5 in the second set. Djokovic served for the match, put three double faults into a single game and handed Struff the set. From there the German never blinked, and a small error from Djokovic in the third-set tie-break was enough.
It was a second big result in a week for Struff. He reached the Brussels final last week after beating Arthur Fils on the way, and he had already beaten his compatriot Yannick Hanfmann 6-4, 6-3 on Wednesday to reach this round.
What it does to the race for Turin
The loss stings because the race had just opened up. Frances Tiafoe went out in Vienna and Rafael Jodar lost in Basel, and both sit ahead of Djokovic. Djokovic is 11th with 2,840 points, 319 behind Jodar in the ninth spot, with the ATP Finals set for 15 to 22 November.
He now needs a long run at the Rolex Paris Masters, which starts on 31 October, to stay in the hunt for a record 19th appearance at the season finale.
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