Djokovic wins in Rome: ‘I moved on from default’
Fifteen days after he was defaulted from the US Open, Novak Djokovic had plenty to celebrate yesterday.
Djokovic beat Diego Schwartzman 7-5, 6-3 to win his fifth Italian Open title; he passed childhood idol Pete Sampras for the second-most weeks at No 1 with 287 — trailing only Roger Federer’s 310 weeks in the top spot — and he reasserted his dominance before the French Open starts in six days.
“I did experience mentally some kind of ups and downs in the first four-five days after (the US Open default) happened. I was in shock,” Djokovic said. “But I moved on and really I never had an issue in my life to move on from something. Regardless how difficult it is I try to take the next day and hope for the best and move on.
“Having a tournament a week after that happened helped a lot . . . just because I really wanted to get on the court and just get whatever traces of that — if there’s any — out, and I think I had a really good week.”
Djokovic improved to 31-1 this year — with his only loss against Pablo Carren˜o Busta in the fourth round of the US Open. That, of course, was when Djokovic unintentionally hit a line judge in the throat with a ball in a fit of anger — resulting in him being thrown out.
Djokovic dropped only one set in five matches this past week, having had to battle through a three-setter against German qualifier Dominik Koepfer in the quarter-finals.
“I don’t think I played my best tennis, to be honest. I don’t want to be arrogant here — of course I’m very, very satisfied and pleased to win a title — but I know that I still have a couple of gears,” Djokovic said. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to raise that level for the French, because that’s going to be necessary if I want to go deep in the tournament.”
In the women’s final, top-seeded Simona Halep won her first Rome title when 2019 champion Karol´ına Pl´ısˇkova´ retired midway through their match with a left thigh injury.
Halep was leading 6-0, 2-1 when Pl´ısˇkova´ stopped playing after just 31 minutes.
Earlier, Pl´ısˇkova´ had her lower back treated by a trainer after Halep won the first set. Pl´ısˇkova´ also had her left thigh taped during the match.
Both players wore face masks as they picked up their trophies themselves.
Halep, who lost the 2017 and 2018 Rome finals to Elina Svitolina, extended her perfect record in tennis’ restart to 10-0.
“In 2013 here I started to (reach) the top of world tennis,” Halep — now a two-time Grand Slam champion — said, recalling her surprise run to the semifinals that year. “Since then I started to play really well and finally, after two finals, I could win this title.”
The second-ranked Halep improved to 14-0 overall stretching to February, when she won in Dubai. After the tour’s five-month break because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Romanian returned by winning another trophy in Prague last month. She skipped the US Open because of travel and health concerns.
A crowd of only 1000 fans was allowed inside the 10,500-seat Campo Centrale stadium. — AP