{"id":272276,"date":"2025-11-05T04:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T04:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/272276\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T04:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T04:09:08","slug":"a-win-a-new-home-and-tears-novak-djokovic-marks-greeces-tennis-comeback-with-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/272276\/","title":{"rendered":"A win, a new home and tears: Novak Djokovic marks Greece’s tennis comeback with victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATHENS, Greece (AP) \u2014 Novak Djokovic<\/a> battled through a tough opening set before pulling away to defeat Chile\u2019s Alejandro Tabilo 7-6 (3), 6-1 at the Hellenic Championship on Tuesday, the first top-tier tournament held in Greece in more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

Both players held their serve under pressure in the first set until Djokovic edged out the tiebreaker. The momentum shifted in the second set, where the top seed broke Tabilo twice and completed the match in just over 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

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Djokovic\u2019s win secured him a spot in the quarterfinals at the ATP 250 event, as elite-level tennis returned to Greece<\/a> for the first time since 1994. The Telekom Center crowd in Athens offered constant support for the 38-year-old Serb, who moved with his family to Athens earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels really like home playing in Athens,\u201d Djokovic said in an on-court interview. \u201cMore than recognition for my tennis achievements, I felt that people here approached me in a friendly and humane way, and that touched my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic had lost his past two encounters with the 28-year-old Tabilo and told the crowd: \u201cI\u2019m thrilled to get through tonight. I played against Tabilo and I\u2019ve never won against him, so I was more under tension before the match than I would be before some others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic was brought to tears while watching a tribute video for Croatian tennis great Nikola Pilic<\/a>, who died earlier this year. Djokovic had trained at Pilic\u2019s academy as a teenager.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was more than just a mentor and a coach to me,\u201d Djokovic told the crowd. \u201cHe was part of my family \u2014 to me and my brothers. He helped so much. I definitely wouldn\u2019t be here without him.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS, Greece (AP) \u2014 Novak Djokovic battled through a tough opening set before pulling away to defeat Chile\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[74009,9246,4135,145513,433,99,428],"class_list":["post-272276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alejandro-tabilo","tag-athens","tag-greece","tag-nikola-pilic","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}