{"id":30618,"date":"2024-03-12T13:33:36","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T10:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/30618\/djokovic-stunned-by-lucky-loser\/"},"modified":"2024-03-12T13:33:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T10:33:37","slug":"djokovic-stunned-by-lucky-loser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=30618","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic stunned by lucky loser Nardi at Indian Wells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Djokovic stunned by lucky loser Nardi at Indian Wells\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>INDIAN WELLS, Calif. &#8211; Luca Nardi used a combination of composure and power to knock out his childhood idol and top seed Novak Djokovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 Monday night in the third round of the Open BNP Paribas.  .<\/p>\n<p>Nardi, ranked No. 123, closed his huge upset against the No. 1 player in the rankings with an ace.  The 20-year-old Italian dropped his racket and raised his hands to his face in near disbelief before greeting Djokovic at the net.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a miracle,\u201d Nardi said in a post-match interview on Tennis Channel.  &#8220;I&#39;m a 20-year-old guy, 100th in the world, and I&#39;m beating Novak. So crazy. Crazy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Setting the tone from the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/start\/\"   title=\"start\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">start<\/a> with his hard-hitting shots, Nardi frustrated Djokovic all evening.  There was a moment when Nardi was surprised by an &#8220;in&#8221; call and sent the ball back over the net.  This resulted in a winner and led Djokovic to complain to the official about a potential obstacle.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#39;s Choice<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>To think that Nardi was about to go home.  He entered the field as a &#8220;lucky loser&#8221;, that is, a player who stumbled on the final hurdle during qualifying but managed to enter the main draw as a replacement for an injured player who withdrew before the first round.  In Nardi&#39;s case, he replaced No. 30 Tomas Martin Etcheverry and received a bye in the first round.<\/p>\n<p>Nardi became the lowest-ranked player to beat Djokovic in a Grand Slam or ATP Masters 1000 level event, surpassing No. 122 Kevin Anderson in 2008 in Miami.<\/p>\n<p>Showing aggression and finesse, Nardi made Djokovic \u2013 the 24-time Grand Slam singles champion from Serbia whom Nardi grew up watching \u2013 smile and shake his head at times.<\/p>\n<p>Nardi was also far from intimidated, responding to Djokovic&#39;s well-placed shots with well-placed returns of his own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore tonight, no one knew me,\u201d said Nardi, who will face American Tommy Paul in the round of 16.  &#8220;I hope now the crowd enjoyed the match. I&#39;m super happy with this one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pull-quote\"><p>&#8220;It&#39;s a miracle. I&#39;m a 20-year-old guy, 100th in the world, and I&#39;m beating Novak. So crazy. Crazy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<div class=\"img-container headshot\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload\" data-lazyload=\"true\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/i\/headshots\/tennis\/players\/full\/7598.png&amp;w=65&amp;h=90&amp;scale=crop&amp;background=0xcccccc&amp;transparent=false\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Luca Nardi<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Djokovic certainly didn&#39;t know much about Nardi, only what he gleaned from watching him play.  He said he knew Nardi had a good baseline game, especially with the forehand, and moved well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He came in as a &#39;lucky loser&#39; [the] main draw, so he really had nothing to lose.  So he played very well,&#8221; Djokovic said. He deserved to <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/win\/\"   title=\"win\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">win<\/a>.  I was more surprised by my level.  My level was really bad.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic, who lost to another Italian player, Jannik Sinner, in the Australian Open semi-finals in January, said he would likely take the court at the Miami Open later this month &#8211; here, looking for his first title of the year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo titles this year, it\u2019s not something I\u2019m used to,\u201d he said.  \u201cI started the season most of my career with a Grand Slam win or, you know, a win in Dubai or any tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess every trophy that comes my way will be great, obviously, to break a little bit of the kind of negative cycle that I&#39;ve had over the last three or four tournaments where I haven&#39;t really been close to my best. &#8220;.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Djokovic stunned by lucky loser Nardi at Indian Wells\u060c INDIAN WELLS, Calif. &#8211; Luca Nardi used a combination of composure and power to knock out his childhood idol and top seed Novak Djokovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 Monday night in the third round of the Open BNP Paribas. . Nardi, ranked No. 123, closed his huge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5877,2794,10134,3429,11824,2927,11825],"class_list":["post-30618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-djokovic","tag-indian","tag-loser","tag-lucky","tag-nardi","tag-stunned","tag-wells"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30620,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30618\/revisions\/30620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}