Six-time champion Novak Djokovic hardly looked like hadn’t played a competitive match in six months as he powered to a convincing straight-sets victory in the first round at the Australian Open on Tuesday.
Playing in his first match after returning from an elbow injury, the 12-time Grand Slam champion said he was feeling “great” after beating American Donald Young 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in one hour and 51 minutes.
The former world No 1, seeded 14th at the Australian Open, will now face Frenchman Gael Monfils in the second round.
Djokovic, who was wearing a protective guard on his right elbow, said after the win, “It felt great to be back on the court and compete again. It’s been a while. Obviously, you don’t know how you’re going to start off.”
He added, “I was putting a lot of hours on the court in the last couple weeks, and I played a lot of practice sets, and I had only one match leading up to this tournament in Kooyong.
“In more or less all of these practice sessions, I could feel that I’m hitting the ball well. So I was hoping this is going to obviously continue and be transferred into the first round of Australian Open.
“The first two sets went extremely well, considering that I haven’t played for six months. The third was up and down a little bit, but in general it was a great performance.”
Djokovic was impressive on Tuesday as he broke Young’s serve six times, hitting 33 winners and conceding only 27 unforced errors.
“I did have various emotions, mostly good ones: excitement, joy, gratitude for being able to have an opportunity to compete,” Djokovic said. “About three weeks ago I didn’t know whether I’m going to play in Australia or not.
“I was looking forward to getting out on the court and compete. But I did feel nerves and I did feel a bit skeptical whether I’m going to be able to continue playing well as I have in the last couple weeks in the practice sessions.
“But I thought I controlled it well. I didn’t get carried away by anything, I just didn’t allow it to happen. Very, very solid performance.”
Asked if he felt rusty after his months out of the game, Djokovic replied, “There were not too many things I didn’t feel so good about.
“There were certain parts of the match, maybe in the third set, where I didn’t capitalise on all these opportunities, break points, match points.
“Maybe I should have just approached these kind of points with a little bit more of intensity, a little bit more of aggression, but I haven’t.
“It’s fine. I won a straight-set match. After six months, there’s not much to say in a negative note about it.”
With inputs from AFP