Djokovic dropped on to his hands and knees and took a medical timeout during the second set before losing 2-6 6-4 6-4 to Tirante, who is ranked 50th in the world.<\/p>\n
“It was not an enjoyable match for me, for sure,” Djokovic said. “The way I felt. Not the first and I guess not the last time, but it is what it is.”<\/p>\n
Djokovic, 39, the world number five, was making his first appearance since losing to Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals at Wimbledon in July.<\/p>\n
The Serbian had never failed to reach at least the last 32 of the tournament in Ohio since making his debut in it in 2005.<\/p>\n
Despite claiming the first set, Djokovic toiled badly after winning an 18-minute third game in the second set and appeared to vomit twice.<\/p>\n
A physio and a doctor provided on-court assistance and both players returned to the dressing rooms after the second set.<\/p>\n
When play resumed Djokovic dropped serve in the ninth game of the third set and Tirante was able to see out the match.<\/p>\n
Djokovic said he is dealing with an underlying health condition.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a condition that I have, health-wise, that has been bothering me for the past couple of years,” Djokovic said. “[It causes] a lot of issues, especially when it is humid and it is hot.”<\/p>\n
Tirante called the victory the “best win of my career”, adding: “I managed the nerves of playing a legend like Novak. It was all so much pressure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Djokovic dropped on to his hands and knees and took a medical timeout during the second set before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-815595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815595","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=815595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}