Novak Djokovic started his 2024 Shanghai Masters campaign today against a very tricky player in Alex Michelsen, and he was able to win the match in two sets.
The last time the Serbian player competed was at the Davis Cup against Greece, where he played some solid tennis to help his country with that tie. He didn't really face any challenging opponents, which is why his first real test after the US Open came at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Shanghai.
His last proper match before the one in China was at the US Open against Alexei Popyrin. The Australian bested Djokovic relatively comfortably, which was a shocking result.
In his words, the Shanghai Masters and similar events are not the events he's most concerned about at the moment. He recently reaffirmed his commitment to just two types of events, the Davis Cup and the Grand Slams.
Those are his main goals, but obviously, if he's playing an event, he's playing to win, Grand Slam or not. The start of this match proved to be quite shaky for Djokovic. It wasn't anything new because he's known to have shaky starts to matches, especially after a long absence, and the opponent was a tricky one.
Michelsen is a capable player, especially on hard courts and especially when he gets motivated. Therefore, it wasn't that strange that he opened the match 3-0.
Despite that, Djokovic slowly but surely turned things in his favor and broke back. Eventually, the Serbian settled into a nice rhythm and kept his serve without too many problems.
Michelsen did the same, so the set ended up in a tie-break, which Djokovic ended up winning. The difference was the hitting. While Michelsen did well behind his serve with seven aces, he struggled quite a bit in rallies.
He hit 14 winners, which is fair, but he also totaled 15 unforced errors. Compared to Djokovic's line of 20 winners and only nine unforced errors explains why the Serbian proved to be better, winning the tie-break 7-3.
The more the Serbian saw how Michelsen played, the better Djokovic countered his game. An early break in the second set was expected, and it happened as Djokovic took a 3-1 lead.
He got better at reading Michelsen's serve, limiting the free points the American got from it. In the rallies, Djokovic remained fairly stable and sat back, absorbing Michelsen's shots, as the American tried to do a bit too much.
Hitting through Djokovic is very tough, but he did it at times during this match. It allowed him to break back in the second set and extend the match a bit more.
Djokovic is the most successful player in Shanghai ever, with four trophies, but he hasn't played in the city since 2019 due to the event not being held for three years after the pandemic.
On top of that, he skipped last year's event, and the match against Michelsen proved to be an appropriate 'welcome back' moment for him. The second set ended in a tie-break as well, with Djokovic having to save two set points to win the match 7-6(3), 7-6(9).