There was a moment in the second set when Novak Djokovic slipped while stretching for a forehand. There was a collective sigh from the crowd, which had poured in to watch the World No 1 in action at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open yesterday.
Djokovic paused for a bit, held his knee and got up gingerly. His opponent Dustin Brown too was concerned. However, Djokovic got back to his feet and dominated the game as he had done all evening and the whole of last year.
The 10-time Grand Slam champion needed just 51 minutes at the Khalifa Complex to get past Brown in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 and open his 2016 campaign on a rousing note. The 82nd-ranked Brown was never going to trouble Djokovic, with the kind of form the latter has been in recent times.
Playing his third game in as many days, having had to come through qualifying, Brown struggled in chilly conditions. Djokovic raced to a 5-0 lead breaking the German twice, before Brown held on to his serve in the sixth game. In the next game, Brown broke Djokovic’s serve to show signs of a comeback but the top seed closed out the set duly by breaking back, as the German double-faulted twice.
In the second set at 2-2, Djokovic broke in the fourth game to end the contest without much sweat even as Brown committed his fourth double fault to hand the match to the Serbian.
“It’s been six weeks since I played the last match, so I was very excited to go back to the court and compete and see how I go,” said Djokovic after the victory.
“Obviously you never know how you’re going to start from the blocks. You can do your best to prepare yourself well, which I did. I think I used the offseason very well to train to get my body in the right shape, and I think it was a very good start,” he added.
The World No. 1, who had lost to Ivo Karlovic in the quarter-finals last year on his first visit to Doha, was happy with the smooth start to the season. “Honestly, the match went very quick, so we didn’t have many exchanges, many rallies. I thought what I have done well was staying in the match each point, not really allowing myself to get distracted or to allow him to start manoeuvring and playing the way he wants.
“I was getting a lot of returns back in play. I thought return was well. Serve was very efficient. And of course there were a few shots that I missed, but all in all, it was a straight-sets win, a comfortable win,” said Djokovic, who will face the winner of the match between Spain’s Fernando Verdasco and Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri.
Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal had a forgettable start to the season as he lost his first round doubles match. Partnering countryman Verdasco, the Spaniards lost to Russia’s Teymuraz Gabashvili and Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain 6-7 (4), 6-4, 11-9 on the centre court.
Nadal is seeded second in Doha, having won here in 2014. He opens the 2016 season today with a match against fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, whom he has beaten in the only time they have faced each other.
“Well, I have been winning here a lot of years in doubles. Hopefully that’s the good news that I lost this time in doubles, so I hope to be ready for singles. In today’s match we had a lot of chances but it was not our day to win,” the World No 5 said.
The opening night also saw a shock result, when unseeded Daniel Munoz De La Nava of Spain ousted fifth seed and countryman Feliciano Lopez 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5. Qatar’s hope also came to an end with wild card Mubarak Shannan Zayid beaten easily by seventh seed Jeremy Chardy 1-6, 1-6.