Djokovic retains world no.1 after epic French Open match with Musetti as he praises Italian

Novak Djokovic and Lorenzo Musetti set a new record finishing at 3:09am local time for the latest ever finish in French Open history taking the moniker from Alexander Zverev against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Djokovic came from behind to seal a 7-5, 6-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 win holding off Jannik Sinner from dethroning him as of now from World No.1. Francisco Cerundolo is the next player to aim to topple him. But Musetti will be kicking himself as to another golden opportunity to beat Djokovic from two sets up.

Speaking afterwards, Djokovic said that he only won due to a stroke of luck and that he really wanted him to win the match. Of course a tad with a sense of irony given that he was playing in said match. But it shows the humility of the World No.1 to praise him like that after such an epic battle.

"I'm going to try and speak French because you really deserve that. What can I say? First of all, congratulations and huge respect to Lorenzo Musetti, a shame that he lost. One of us had to lose today ot tonight or this morning, whatever," he said.

"But I said to him that it was a great battle. It was a shame for him to lose because he really wanted to win this match and it was very close. I had a bit of luck right at the beginning of the fourth set because he was the better player on the court at that time," he added.

"And there was a point in time where I couldn't find any solutions and I had to try and solve the conundrum of his game. Basically I didn't seem to be able to win against him. Everything that he was doing, he was succeeding in very high quality. Less errors, so I was really in a tricky position," he said.

"But, I have to say that I said you deserve for me to speak in French to you and I wanted to thank you because, in the fourth set at 2-2, you gave me the energy and I became a new player so thank you for your support at that moment in time," he added.