World No. 2 Novak Djokovic is through to the next round of Paris Masters 2018 after defeating his Portuguese adversary Joao Sousa in straight sets. Marin Cilic also came through after moving past Philipp Kohlschreiber in his opener.
Djokovic looked confident and determined in his opening game in Paris. The Serbian started his campaign with a 7-5, 6-1 win that took him a little over 90 minutes to achieve.
The first set for the reigning Shanghai Masters champion proved to be a bit tricky as Sousa put up a great deal of resistance on his part. His service was broken at 1-2 but he managed to get back in the game at 2-4 after breaking Djokovic’s service. After making things even, it wasn’t until the final game of the set that he lost his serve again.
Sousa was serving at 5-6 to stay in the first set but Djokovic was absolutely clinical in that game. Eventually, he moved on to take the first set and take a 1-0 lead.
In the second set, the Serbian was far more domineering. He won two break points early in the set to take an insurmountable 5-0 lead. While Sousa did attempt to fight back, he couldn’t find a way around his opponent’s resilience.
The 2018 Chengdu Open semifinalist also fought hard in the final game of the set to stay in the match. While he saved two match points, he also squandered three break points to hand the Serbian an easy win. All said and done, Djokovic saved a total of 11 break points in the match.
In another match, Cilic took just a little over an hour to overcome his German opponent Kohlschreiber. He won the match 6-3, 6-4 on the back of eight aces and a first service win rate of 80%.
The two players were pretty much even in the first set. In the sixth game, however, Kohlschreiber found it rather difficult to retain his serve. Consequently, he ended up losing his serve, thus handing the Croat the first set.
In the second set, he was broken twice to go down 4-1 early in the set. Thereafter, it was a smooth sailing for Cilic who moved on to win the match comfortably.
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