World No.1 Novak Djokovic was not impressed with his opening round performance on Tuesday against Ivan Gakhov in the 2023 Monte-Carlo Masters.
Although the Serbian won the match in straight sets, he seemed displeased with the manner in which his victory came about. After dropping serve in the opening set, Djokovic broke back to force a tiebreak, which he won.
The second set was more decisive, with Djokovic allowing just two games before closing out the match with a 7-6(5) 6-2 victory.
"It was probably, if you can call it this way, an ugly tennis win for me today," said the 22-time Grand Slam champion in his post-match interview. "I haven't played really my best, particularly in the first set, and I kind of expected that that's going to happen in a way with swirly conditions."
The 35-year old bemoaned the challenging conditions, but was pleased he escaped with the victory.
"A lot of wind today, changing directions and it, it's different practicing and then playing an official match on clay that, you know, I guess no two bounces are the same, you know, it's always quite unpredictable what's going to happen," he admitted. "But I am pleased with the way I held my nerves, I think, in important moments and, you know, managed to clinch the two-set win."
Novak Djokovic: "Clay for me is the most challenging surface to adapt to, throughout my career it took me two weeks of tournaments to really start playing the way I wanted to play. I'm very happy to have passed the first step because I hope that things will be better from now on"
