"I Was Hanging On The Ropes The Entire Match" says Novak Djokovic after defeat

Despite being disappointed after his stunning second-round Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters loss on Tuesday, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic was quick to praise the man who defeated him, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

He opened with a congratulatory message for his opponent who worked really hard the entire match wanting the victory desperately. Fokina dived for the ball several times ending up with cuts and bruises along the way which Djokovic respected:

“I would like to congratulate Alejandro. He was the better player. He managed to find a better rhythm I think in the first two sets. I was hanging on the ropes the entire match. I was really chasing the result constantly.”

It seemed the two-time tournament champion would take over the match after escaping the second-set tie-break, in which he was two points from losing in straight sets. The Serbian urged the crowd to get involved and had a big smile on his face as the fans cheered for him.

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He said:

“I always believed that I could come back and win the match, and I stayed there even though a lot of things were against me in terms of how I felt on the court. Game-wise, physically I was just far from my best. So of course in those types of conditions and circumstances, then you have to really work two times more than you normally would. And again, I played a clay-court specialist. He had a match already on centre court a few days ago."

He finished off with:

“I’m going to look with my team into reasons why that was the case and go back to the drawing board. Hopefully, next week will be better in Belgrade.”