{"id":818529,"date":"2026-10-30T09:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T09:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818529\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T09:48:08","slug":"novak-djokovics-atp-finals-blow-with-jan-lennard-struff-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818529\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic’s ATP Finals blow with Jan-Lennard Struff defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic’s hopes of making a record 19th appearance at the ATP Finals have been dented by a surprise defeat against Jan-Lennard Struff at the Swiss Indoors in Basel.<\/p>\n

Playing in the tournament for the first time in 15 years, the 39-year-old lost 6-7 (4-7) 7-5 7-6 (7-5) – the first time he has been beaten by Struff in nine meetings.<\/p>\n

“I knew I needed to go for it. There was only one way to play it. So, I was very, very happy,” said the world number 27.<\/p>\n

“I knew I had to play my best tennis to have a chance. The last eight times he beat me very, very easily. So, I’m very, very happy and pleased with the performance.”<\/p>\n

The year’s top-eight performers qualify for the ATP event in Turin and this result leaves Djokovic – the men’s game’s record 24-time Grand Slam winner – 11th in the standings. <\/p>\n

Djokovic admitted he expected to feel “a little rusty” after his win against Frenchman Ugo Humbert<\/a> on Wednesday, but now faces a fight to make the finals as he is outside the top 10 for the first time since 2018. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic’s hopes of making a record 19th appearance at the ATP Finals have been dented by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-818529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818529","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=818529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}