Djokovic returns to his familiar forme at his first match in Rome where he faced off against Italian hopeful Salvatore Caruso. The match started off similar to what many Novak's matches start. Novak eases into the match slowly observing his opponent and finding out his weaknesses. Once he sees them he goes on to exploit them through the match.

This match followed that patterns as the beginning were slow with the score being tied 3-3. After that Djokovic shifted into a higher gear breaking his opponent at a crucial time in the 1st set making it 5-3. He would close out the set easily with 6-3. The 2nd set continued the trend of a typical Novak match where he continued to exploit the weaknesses of his opponent. The difference to the 1st set is that he was even more clinical leaving his opponent nothing on the court.

Caruso tried very hard to resist Novak especially in the 3rd game of the 2nd set where he saved 3 break points before losing his serve on the 4th he allowed. The set continued as both player's won their own games before Djokovic deicing to end the match at 4-2. He broke Caruso once more to take a 5-2 lead and served out the match to win it 6-3 6-2. A solid performance for Djokovic in the first match of the clay season.

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