Novak Djokovic yesterday eased into the Internazionali BNL d’Italia quarter-finals after breezing past Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-4, although there was tension with the Briton after the top seed was hit by a smash.
The Serb has reached the last eight in each of his previous 16 appearances in the Italian capital and he did again, getting past Norrie on center court to set up a clash with either Alexei Popyrin or Holger Rune.
Djokovic is gunning for a seventh title on clay in Rome and his chances were made a little bit easier by the shock elimination of Carlos Alcaraz on Monday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Alcaraz, who won two consecutive tournaments at Barcelona and Madrid, is guaranteed to take the world No. 1 spot from Djokovic on Monday next week.
Djokovic won the first three games against Norrie and closed out the first set with little fuss, without needing to be at his best.
The 35-year-old then took the second set to 2-1 with a break, but in the next game Norrie broke back while angering Djokovic with a smash that hit him on the back of his left leg. Norrie had the whole court to put the ball away as Djokovic had given up on the point and was walking back to the service line.
Norrie raised his hand to apologies, but at the changeover after the Briton moved to 3-2 Djokovic gave him another long beady-eyed stare as he passed him.
After Djokovic sealed victory with his second match point he gave Norrie a cursory handshake at the net, while avoiding eye contact and exchanging no words with his dispatched opponent.
“So far so good,” Djokovic said of his progress in Rome. “It was an early start today. Strange conditions. I actually finished my warm-up 10 minutes before I went on the court, so I was rushing a bit with everything but we couldn’t play earlier because of the rain.”
“I’m just glad to overcome today’s challenge in straight sets and move on,” he said.
On Monday, Alcaraz slumped to a third-round defeat by unheralded Hungarian Fabian Marozsan.
The 20-year-old Spaniard had come into the tournament in Rome on the back of wins in Barcelona and Madrid, but was outplayed by 23-year-old Marozsan, losing 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).
Marozsan, who is ranked 135th in the world, won the final six points of the second-set tie-break to give Alcaraz a wake-up call.
Alcaraz said he required some sustained training to beef up his French Open preparations with the clay-court major beginning on May 28.
“I’m going to rest a little bit, some days off for me,” he said. “I really need some days to reset my mind and be fresh for Roland Garros.”
“If I want to go to Paris in good shape, I have to practice, to be better. I’ve been playing so much that I couldn’t practice more than three, four days in a row,” he said. “It’s going to be really helpful for me to have days at home practicing and getting ready to go to Roland Garros.”
He admitted he was outplayed by his Hungarian opponent.
“He surprised me a lot, his level was really, really high. I’m sure he’s going to break the top 100 very, very soon,” Alcaraz said.
In the women’s singles, Elena Rybakina saw off Marketa Vondrousova 6-3, 6-3 to reach her first clay-court WTA 1000 quarter-final, where she is to face either top-ranked Iga Swiatek, the twice defending champion, or Croatia’s Donna Vekic.
Additional reporting by AP and Reuters
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