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Playing his second tournament on clay this
season after being knocked out by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in
Monte Carlo earlier this month, Djokovic was off to a slow start
as second seed Rublev broke him twice to clinch the opening set
6-2.
Djokovic had prevailed from a set down in his last three matches
and the 20-times major winner, cheered on by a capacity home
crowd, raised his game in the second set to take the tie-breaker
despite earlier squandering five set points on the Rublev serve.
The Serbian missed a chunk of the early season, including the
Australian Open as well as ATP Masters 1000 events in Miami and
Indian Wells, due to his refusal to get vaccinated against
COVID-19 - and his lack of match practice showed in the deciding
set on Sunday.
Rublev galloped to an early lead and barely gave his opponent a
chance as he closed out the match with a powerful forehand
winner for his first win over Djokovic and 11th career title.
"It was unfortunate that in the third set I really ran out of
gas," Djokovic told reporters. "I couldn't deliver more of a
fight but congratulations to Andrey on another great week."
The 34-year-old added that his surrender in the final set could
have been down to a recent illness that also caused him trouble
in the second-round defeat in Monte Carlo.
"I didn't like the feeling towards the end of the second set,
and basically the entire third set was similar to what I was
experiencing in Monte Carlo. Whether or not it is due to that
illness I had or something like that, I don't know," he said,
adding that the problem wasn't related to COVID-19.
"At least this bad feeling came in the fourth match rather than
the first. Things are progressing slowly but surely. Paris is
the big goal and hopefully by Paris I will be fit and ready to
play best-of-five."
(Reporting by Dhruv Munjal in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson
and Toby Davis)
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