Novak Djokovic and Jack Draper produced one of the rallies of the season during their gruelling Indian Wells Open clash and the 24-time Grand Slam winner believes that was a key factor to his defeat in the end.<\/p>\n
Third seed Djokovic<\/a> won the opening set via a single break in game 10 before Draper<\/a> broke twice in the second set to take the fourth-round match to a decider.<\/p>\n And it was in the opening game of the third set with the score 30-30 on the Djokovic serve when they slugged it out for a 26-point rally that took a lot out of both players.<\/p>\n The former world No 1 won the point and, although the British player had a break point later in the game, the Serbian saved it and managed to hold serve to go 1-0 up, but he believes it cost him a game later.<\/p>\n After a comfortable hold from Draper, he broke to take a 1-2 lead and, although Djokovic managed to claim the break back later, the defending champion held his nerve during the tie-breaker to win 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic told he is \u2018a long way\u2019 from winning record breaking 25th Grand Slam title<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Indian Wells Open: Why is Novak Djokovic wearing a white sleeve?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Asked what made the difference in the end, he replied: \u201cOne point. Yeah, one point.\u201d<\/p>\n The former Indian Wells champion then described THAT point, saying: \u201cYeah, I mean, it cost me a break after, you know. It was great winning that point in that game, but I just, like, ran completely out of gas and just started to feel a bit better towards basically end of the third.<\/p>\n \u201cHe played a sloppy game to close it out 5-4, and, you know, I got the crowd, you know, backing me, and I felt the energy. It was, like, maybe I\u2019m gonna take this one.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so close, so close. I mean, just unfortunate few mistakes from my side. Tiebreak, 4-3 up. 5-All, as well.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic was also full of praise for Draper, who is still nursing his way back after missing the latter half of the 2025 season due to an arm injury.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there is any major difference in his level from what he has, you know, shown pre-injury,\u201d the 38-year-old said. \u201cI mean, he\u2019s been playing at a great level, actually. I have watched him a little bit, had some highlights in Dubai that he has played there a few matches.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd here, obviously defending champion, he really likes the conditions, suiting his game, and you could see that. I mean, he\u2019s playing really well. I mean, he\u2019s confident and he was always confident and physically very fit.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, just overall a great player, great guy. I wish him all the best for the rest of the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Indian Wells Open: Novak Djokovic highlights crucial moment that \u2018cost\u2019 him during Jack Draper defeat<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic and Jack Draper produced one of the rallies of the season during their gruelling Indian Wells Open clash and the 24-time Grand Slam winner believes that was a key factor to his defeat in the end. Third seed Djokovic won the opening set via a single break in game 10 before Draper broke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Novak Djokovic News<\/h2>\n