Novak Djokovic believes Rome can be a 'good week' for him after encouraging win over Dolgopolov

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  • Rome has almost always been a happy hunting ground for Novak Djokovic.

    Since his tournament debut in 2007, he has never lost before the quarter-finals in the Italian capital. He has lifted the trophy here four times and has reached the final on each of his last four appearances – even last season when he was going through a rough patch and had to stop for six months due to elbow injury shortly after.

    And it seems the city is having its magical effect on him once again, judging from Djokovic’s encouraging 6-1, 6-3 opening round victory over Alexandr Dolgopolov that lasted just 55 minutes.

    Coming on the heels of a second round exit to Kyle Edmund last week in Madrid, Djokovic’s win on Monday was just his fourth on clay this season and his seventh on any surface.

    “I feel like every day has been a progress, Rome has always been a place where I felt good, where I received a lot of support, where I played well, a lot of great results and today’s match encourages me and gives me reason to believe that it can be a good week for me,” said a confident-looking Djokovic after his win.

  • Stan Wawrinka opens up about ‘tough moments’ while out injured, loses to Steve Johnson on return in Rome

  • “Let’s see, obviously I’d like to go all the way but at the same time, looking at my results I have to be a little bit more modest I would say with the expectations and see where it takes me.”

    The Serb, who faces one of two qualifiers in the next round – Nikoloz Basilashvili or Filippo Baldi – admits it’s been a challenging time for him but is somehow grateful that he is getting a chance to be reflective and dig deeper to solve any underlying causes.

    “As weird as it sounds for me as well, knowing that I haven’t had a major title in a while, and haven’t played good tennis in a while, I’m still glad that I’m going through this process because it allows me to get to know myself on a deeper level and address certain things that you usually don’t address when anything goes well,” explained the No. 11 seed.

    Having split with his entire team a year ago, Djokovic has reunited with two members of that group during the last few weeks as he rehired his ex-coach Marian Vajda and his former fitness trainer Gebhard Phil-Gritsch after a brief period with Andre Agassi and Radek Stepanek did not pay dividends. He admits that forming the right team around him has not been easy.

    “It’s all a learning curve for me and figuring out the way, how I want to move forward with tennis from this point onwards,” said Djokovic.

    “I don’t have yet 100 per cent clarity in terms of what the future will look like but I’m getting there.

    “I feel more comfortable on the court, more comfortable with my team, that’s where I’ve made many changes over the last 12 months and that hasn’t really brought a sense of comfort and peace to me because I always had to think, ‘Who’s going to be next to me? Do I need someone? Is that someone going to travel full-time or not? What are we going to work on?’

    “New people, new ways of seeing my game and changing things and changing the racquet and all these different things. Changes in general are good when they’re focused on improvement and that’s what I’m focused on and we’ll see where it takes me.”

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