Novak Djokovic suffered yet another shock opening-match loss, this time to Matteo Arnaldi at the 2025 Madrid Masters.<\/p>\n
Arnaldi, who collected his second victory over a top-five player, served out the match with ease for a 6-3, 6-4 win to move into the third-round of the ATP<\/a> Masters 1000 event.<\/p>\n The last time that the former world No 1 left Madrid without a victory was back in 2013, when he lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 32 in a three-set tussle.<\/p>\n This encounter, however, cannot be described as such, with Djokovic<\/a> several levels below his Madrid best.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, pretty much [it feels like a dream] without any doubt,\u201d remarked the Italian.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s my idol, he has always been, so I was just glad that I could play him [Djokovic] because I had never played him \u2013 just practised once.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, to play him on a stage like this was already a victory for me, but, he\u2019s not at his best right now, so I came on the court to try to play my best tennis and win, and it happened.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, I don\u2019t even know what to say.\u201d<\/p>\n The Italian had battled through a tough three-set match in the first round against Born Coric, but looked far more comfortable in the Manolo Santana stadium, with a crucial hold at 4-3 in the second after facing three break points proving critical.<\/p>\n In the end, Arnaldi utilised his second match point to claim the biggest win of his career.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the start, I just tried to not s*** in my pants to be honest,\u201d said the world No 44, who will next face Damir Dzumhur.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the main thing because, when I got on this court \u2013 I had never even practised on this court \u2013 so you don\u2019t know anything, you don\u2019t know the points of the court.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying him, I just tried to rally a bit at the start, try to make him make mistakes. Then, the tension started to go away, and he gave me a little bit in a few games.<\/p>\n \u201cFor sure, when I broke him, I knew that I was going to be broken back straight after, then I was like \u2018ok, that\u2019s a good start.\u2019 After that, it was an escalation and it became quite a good match.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to watch the match again. Like I said, I have been watching him play since I was a kid, nine, ten, I always tried to play like him, so, at that point [in the 4-3 game in the second set], we were pretty similar and I won that point.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s partying confession causes stir as he is given strong Grand Slam warning<\/a><\/p>\n Dominic Thiem rates Alexander Zverev\u2019s Grand Slam hopes as he names French Open favourites<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, Djokovic has been struggling for victories in 2025 \u2013 having fallen the his first match at four of his last 5 events, with the exception being at the Miami Masters.<\/p>\n The Serb conceded 32 unforced errors and will need to significantly raise his level at the Rome Masters, if he wishes to capture an elusive 100th<\/sup> singles title.<\/p>\n The post Novak Djokovic suffers first opening-match Madrid loss in 12 years as losing streak continues<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic suffered yet another shock opening-match loss, this time to Matteo Arnaldi at the 2025 Madrid Masters. Arnaldi, who collected his second victory over a top-five player, served out the match with ease for a 6-3, 6-4 win to move into the third-round of the ATP Masters 1000 event. The last time that the […]<\/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-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","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=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Latest ATP News<\/h3>\n