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By Chris Oddo | Saturday May 28, 2016

Not wanting to be stretched out to a second day, Novak Djokovic started to rush through the third set of his third-round match with Great Britain’s Aljaz Bedene. Though he was broken in the fourth game of the set, he broke right back and took four of the final five games in the fading light to advance.

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There is a word for this in French: Soulagement.

A relieved Djokovic finished with a 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 victory to book his place in the round of 16 where he’ll meet Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut.

“After second set I started thinking about it, honestly,” Djokovic said. “The beginning I just focused on my performance. I tried to come up with the right tactics and execution of the tactics, which I did, I think.”

The stats concur. Djokovic struck 39 errors against 20 unforced errors, and broke seven times on 17 opportunities. He won 28 of 39 points against the Bedene second serve.

“I'm just glad I managed to finish tonight,” Djokovic said.

Djokovic reaches the round of 16 in Paris for the 10th time and improves to 40-3 on the season.


After the match the Serb talked about the significance of Rafael Nadal’s withdrawal, saying that he hadn’t thought of Nadal's misfortune in terms of his own quest for a maiden title in Paris. He was just sad for Nadal. “I feel empathy for him, because as an athlete that was also injured before, I know this particular feeling when you need to kind of pull out from the tournament,” he said. “I mean, I can only imagine this is his favorite Grand Slam.”

He added: “It was sad seeing him, you know, in the press conference. You could feel his pain, definitely.”

 

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