After playing one singles match this week at the 2023 Davis Cup Finals, Novak Djokovic played another match though this one was in doubles and it was a loss.
This was more than anything a tryout for Djokovic because he will need to play doubles in the knockout stages if he hopes to lead Serbia to the trophy. That's the goal, and today, he partnered with Nikola Cacic to see how they would do.
It was a decent match, a three-setter, though not one that Djokovic will remember for a long time, as it was a dead rubber match, meaning it had no effect on the result of the tie, as the Czech Republic led already 2-0. It was a losing effort, so not the best tryout, but let's see what exactly happened. The first set was close as Djokovic and his partner applied heavy pressure early.
The Czech team handled it well, even when they were facing set points late. After saving those, they actually broke and took a 6-5 lead, finishing off the set 7-5. The second one saw the Serbian team respond, though it was a close set once more.
Djokovic and Cacic saved early break points in that one only to force a tiebreak, which they barely pulled out 9-7. It was some of the better tennis they played today, but once again, the chemistry just wasn't really there, and we saw the effects of that in the final set.
It was a rather poor effort from the Serbians as they lost to the Czech team in the match tie-break, 10-3. It was evident pretty early that it wasn't going to go their way because the Czechs were up 5-1 and simply cruised from there.
The loss doesn't matter much as Djokovic did what he had to do by beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and securing Serbia a place in the knockout stages. This was a nice send-off to vacation until we see him again on the courts.
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