Novak Djokovic returned to tennis at the 2023 Paris Masters and navigated a tricky matchup against Tomas Martin Etcheverry to beat him in two sets.
Novak Djokovic hasn't played in a while, as his last matches came at the Davis Cup qualifiers in Spain. It was only a few days after the US Open triumph, and he played quite decent tennis to help his Serbia secure a spot in the final eight.
He took an extended break after that but returned to Paris to finish off this year with three events, the first of which is this one. The opponent in round two was a tricky one in Etcheverry, who has proven himself to be a really good player this year.
It doesn't matter what surface; Etcheverry will always give you his all, and that's what happened here as well. The match started and progressed slowly as neither player found any solutions early.
Djokovic was slowly playing himself into shape, and once he hit working temperature, he swung the momentum on his side.
The opening set was 6-3 for Djokovic behind some really solid baseline play. He totalled 9 winners, beating out his opponent, who had 8. Neither had too many mistakes, but Djokovic was also more dominant on his serve, which mattered.
The second set came easier to Djokovic because he had seen enough of Etcheverry by now to know how to attack him. The Argentine also dropped his focus a little bit, which tends to happen when you lose the opening set. Djokovic looked a bit sharper as well, but that's normal.
He's going to be a lot better with every match he plays. We've seen this for many years, as it's the typical Grand Slam ramp-up he does. The final score was 6-3 6-2 for Djokovic who moves on to face Tallon Griekspoor.
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