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Djokovic lost 3-6 2-6 to Andrey Golubev.Shocking it would have been, had the loser been Novak. But the unlucky Djokovic was younger brother Marko.
Awarded a wild-card courtesy big brother, Djokovic wasn’t able to make much of an impression as the Kazakh pro overcame an early service break to comfortably progress to the next round. Yet to win a match on the ATP Tour, even the presence of ‘the brother’ in the Center Court couldn’t do much to change the proceedings.
He had to come back though, as Djokovic Sr was playing his first match since those half a dozen matches he played against Nadal and Murray in the Australian Open. However, he displayed no signs of rust or lack of focus, nor took any time to tune in, as he took on the young German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe. With his entire family in attendance, he gave his desolate looking sibling something to cheer about as he played sharply to notch up a first round win against the German.
Ranked 350+ in the world this time last year, Cedrik-Marcel Stebe finished the year on a high winning the Challenger Tour Finals in Brazil and entering the top 100. Up against the hottest player on tour, he showed confidence in his abilities and hardly any signs of nervousness, apart from an opening double-fault, as he played some sparkling tennis to keep up with the Serb. Not for long however as Djokovic, on his serve in the first set, 0-30 down, engaged his World No. 1 mode, held on and took the break of serve and take the first set 6-4.
In the second, Stebe managed to engage Djokovic in some long exchanges from the baseline, however Djokovic was able to up the pace at will and set up winners with ease as he closed out the match in under 90 minutes, winning 6-4, 6-2. In fact, the couple of occasions he missed a winner were simply because he had too much time to choose from his options. The positives for Stebe from this match were that he made the World No. 1 play as one, not giving many free points, while displaying top 50 capabilities.
The upcoming stretch of tournaments can have a significant impact on the rankings. With 2500 points at stake in the upcoming month, this was exactly the kind of return the World No. 1 would have wanted to defend his spot on the top.Now to look at Federer and Murray today, as they aspire to be the ones making the impact.
