{"id":793830,"date":"2026-10-06T15:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793830\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T15:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:12:09","slug":"china-open-novak-djokovic-claims-102nd-career-title-carlos-alcaraz-wins-japan-trophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793830\/","title":{"rendered":"China Open: Novak Djokovic claims 102nd career title, Carlos Alcaraz wins Japan trophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 24-time Grand Slam champion was competing in only his second final of the year after losing January’s Australian Open showpiece to Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n

Djokovic beat world number two Alexander Zverev on his way to the Beijing final and was a set and a break up on third seed Daniil Medvedev when the Russian was defaulted<\/a> from their semi-final.<\/p>\n

Djokovic’s ability to compete at the highest level is rarely in question – he beat world number one Sinner to reach the Australian Open final and took a set off Alcaraz in the showpiece – but his body has let him down in recent years.<\/p>\n

He was left in tears following a gruelling first-round loss<\/a> at the US Open and spoke about struggling with a “serious health condition” that particularly bothered him in oppressive conditions.<\/p>\n

He reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon, losing to eventual champion Jannik Sinner, but suffered a surprise third-round exit at the French Open at the hands of rising star Joao Fonseca.<\/p>\n

This is Djokovic’s first title in just over a year, having limited his schedule to protect his body.<\/p>\n

He is the oldest man to win an ATP Tour-level title since 43-year-old Ken Rosewall won in Hong Kong in 1877.<\/p>\n

Victory will also see him return to inside the world’s top 10.<\/p>\n

“This year has been quite challenging for me, lots of ups and downs and physical and health issues, so I was just trying to find a good feeling on the court,” Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

“I know that when I’m feeling well and striking the ball well I can still compete at the highest level. <\/p>\n

“This week has been an evidence to that. I’m very proud.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 24-time Grand Slam champion was competing in only his second final of the year after losing January’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-793830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793830","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=793830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}