Novak Djokovic’s return to the Miami Open was cut short on Friday, as the six-time champion—who missed last year’s event with an elbow injury—fell to Benoit Paire in his opening match, 6-3, 6-4.
Here are five takeaways from the Frenchman’s win over the 12-time Grand Slam champion:
1. Paire made life very hard for Djokovic on his serve. While Paire held eight of his nine service games—and fired nine aces along the way—he gave Djokovic big trouble on his serve, breaking the Serb in four of his 10 service games. For the match, Djokovic had a solid 62% first serve percentage, but only won 53% of those points—meanwhile, Paire won a strong 75% of his first serve points.
Djokovic showed some fight at the end—with Paire up 6-3, 4-2, he broke back and caught back up to 6-3, 4-4. But Paire held and then broke Djokovic one last time (at love) to close it out after 67 minutes.
2. Djokovic was on a 16-match winning streak in Miami. He had won back-to-back-to-back titles here before having to miss last year’s event. That winning streak is now over.
Djokovic is actually one of the greatest players in the tournament’s history, his six titles (2007, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016) tying him with Andre Agassi for the most titles ever at the Masters 1000 tournament. Agassi, who is now his coach, won this event in 1990, 1995, 1996, 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Match point from Paire's win over Djokovic:
