On Friday in London, Novak Djokovic battled back from an early 4-2 deficit to beat Adrian Mannarino in straight sets, reach the semifinals of the Fever-Tree Championships—and get a milestone, 800th career match win.
Fresh off defeating No. 2 seed Grigor Dimitrov on Thursday, Djokovic—a 12-time Grand Slam champion wild card into this event—got off to somewhat of a slow start against Mannarino, getting broken in his second service game at 1-all and eventually finding himself down 4-2. But he buckled down from there and ended up winning 11 of the last 13 games of the match to prevail, 7-5 6-1, after an hour and 18 minutes.
“Mannarino is a tricky player on grass. His ball stays very low, he doesn’t make many mistakes, he has a great wide serve, and he just anticipates the ball really well on grass,” Djokovic said afterwards.
“I got used to his pace and his shots after five or six games, and I started feeling more comfortable returning and playing the rallies with him. Getting the first set under my belt was obviously a relief.”
Djokovic is now 3-0 in his career against Mannarino, and an also flawless 8-0 in sets.
Despite getting broken early on in their match on Friday, Djokovic has still been excellent on serve this tournament, holding 25 of his 26 service games (he was 16 for 16 coming into this match).
WATCH—Djokovic completes his 799th career win, against Grigor Dimitrov:
