Novak Djokovic defeats Stefanos Tsitsipas in Astana Open final to win his 90th career ATP title and his 10th Grand Slam victory.
Novak Djokovic won his 90th career ATP singles title and his 10th Grand Slam singles title on Sunday after defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece 6-3, 6-4 in the final of the Astana Open in Sochi, Russia.
The 29-year-old Serbian, the world’s No. 1 player at Wimbledon, has won 16 of his first 20 career singles matches on clay this season, and had been chasing his 100th career Grand Slam singles title since winning his 20th match of the season against Stefanos Molteni in May.
“I’m extremely happy, really proud and it was really special today,” Djokovic said before his match, which ran for nearly seven hours but was halted in the fourth set by what the court officials considered a double fault on the second point.
“I won against (Molteni) in the (US Open) final and he is a very tough opponent and was in good form and a very quick player, played well for the first three or four sets against me, and I knew that he was going to make one mistake and that’s when I won,” Djokovic added.
“In a lot of good matches I have fought to the very last second and today I fought to the very last second and I think I did what I wanted to do.”
Djokovic broke Tsitsipas in the second set, then kept him at bay and played an aggressive baseline game until he was serving at 4-4, when Djokovic closed out the victory with a forehand winner down the line, and he played a short forehand down the line to take the next two sets.
Djokovic, who has won eight of his last 10 matches on hard courts this season and is 6-0 against the tough-as-nails Tilden, won the first set against Tsitsipas in straight sets until the Greek stunned the world No.1 with an unreturnable serve.
“I was in control of the game and I was just trying to take control mentally and physically,” Tsitsipas said of his first set against Djokovic.
“In the second