Impressive Novak Djokovic battles to straight-sets win over Grigor Dimitrov to reach last 16 at 2023 Australian Open

Novak Djokovic battled injury, age and Grigor Dimitrov for a 7-6(7) 6-3 6-4 win to reach the last 16 of the Australian Open on Saturday.

In the first set Djokovic edged ahead, and at 5-3, Dimitrov was serving to stay in the set but his 12 forced errors already at that stage of the match, betrayed why the Bulgarian was trailing the world No. 5.

However Dimitrov battled back with his own break to level the scores to 5-5.

With the scores level again, the Serbian appeared to be feeling his strapped left leg, but he pulled the set back to 6-6 to force a tie-break, with Dimitrov forcing his opponent to favour that side to exacerbate his discomfort.

However Djokovic fought against his mobility problems and took the tie-break 9-7 after going from 4-1 up to 7-7. Djokovic then took a medical timeout after 77 minutes of action.

In the second set, more errors almost cost Dimitrov a service game but he managed to hold on, before he could not resist any longer and the 21-time Grand Slam winner moved 4-2 clear and then 6-3 to move two sets ahead

That left the fourth seed needing just another set for a whitewash victory and he raced into a 3-0 lead, but the world No. 28 managed to keep pace as the pair broke one another five times in seven games to leave Djokovic serving at 4-3 up.

Dimitrov forced Djokovic into needing to serve for the match at 5-4 up before he wrapped up the win after four hours of play

Djokovic missed last year at Melbourne due to his stance on coronavirus vaccinations but was playing as one of the favourites despite his 35 years.

More to follow

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