{"id":248799,"date":"2025-11-07T06:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T06:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/248799\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T06:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T06:23:07","slug":"novak-djokovic-taken-aback-by-opponent-and-serb-has-roger-federer-in-his-sights-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/248799\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic taken aback by opponent and Serb has Roger Federer in his sights | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic was \u201csurprised\u201d by Nuno Borges\u2019 performance at the Hellenic Championship in Greece on Thursday as the Serbian booked his place in his 199th Tour-level semi-final. The veteran is now just 13 semi-final appearances away from surpassing Roger Federer<\/a>\u2019s record, with the Swiss star appearing in 211 last-four matches throughout his career.<\/p>\n

Djokovic entered the Hellenic Championship, which is an ATP 250 event, after moving to Athens with his family<\/a> earlier this year. The 38-year-old\u2019s brother is the tournament director, with the 24-time Grand Slam champion playing his first-ever professional tennis match in Greece earlier this week when he took on Alejandro Tabilo at the event<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Djokovic faced two break points while serving at 4-4 in the opening set against Borges as his Portuguese opponent sensed an upset.<\/p>\n

But the world No. 5 held his nerve to win the game before taking the opening set on a tiebreak. He then battled through the second set to secure a 7-6, 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n

Djokovic faced a tiebreak in his opening match as well as he eventually got the better of Tabilo on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

And commenting on his showdown with Borges, the blockbuster star explained: \u201cIt was a very physical battle. I thought that Nuno played on a very high level. I must say, honestly, I was a bit surprised with how good he played.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we went toe-to-toe for most of the match, and just a few points determined the winner today. So he deserves a big applause for his performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just tried to hang in there. Obviously serving well always helps in the important moments. I think it was 5-5, or 4-4 in the first set, I faced two break points and had big serves – sometimes risks pay off in the big moments and you just have to trust your instincts and go for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I played a good tiebreak. There weren’t many opportunities for both of us to break – I think that game I broke him was the only game I was able to break.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all, very pleased with the performance. I want to thank everybody for showing up and supporting both of us tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic will be hoping to move past Federer in the all-time semi-final appearances pecking order and could achieve the feat as early as next year.<\/p>\n

But he will need to appear in a lot more last-four matches to topple Jimmy Connors at the top of the leaderboard. Connors, who won eight Grand Slam singles titles, appeared in a staggering 239 semi-finals before bringing his career to an end in 1996.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic was \u201csurprised\u201d by Nuno Borges\u2019 performance at the Hellenic Championship in Greece on Thursday as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[2043,95563,6766,101032,6768,101,118,12700,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-248799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-greece","tag-hellenic-championship","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-nuno-borges","tag-roger-federer","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-section","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}