Novak Djokovic - David Horton

Novak Djokovic is into the quarterfinals for a second straight year following his 6-3 6-3 7-6(1) win over Fernando Verdasco.

The sixth seeded Serb, who looked out of sorts in the previous round against Frenchman Olivier Patience, produced a much more consistent performance against the left handed Spaniard.

"I played much better today", Djokovic admitted. "Today I managed to step in, which I was planning to do. I was feeling really good and I showed it on the court. Especially, being aggressive makes me happy now. I know that now I'm playing my game and going with a lot of confidence and motivation in the next match."

Djokovic was somewhat fortunate that he faced an opponent who made a lot more unforced errors (52 v 24) and hit a mere 7 winners. The Serb's break point conversion rate of 21% (4/19) was only marginally better than the woeful (2/16) 13% he managed in his match against Patience.

Djokovic raced to a two sets lead as the erratic Verdasco made numerous unforced errors to concede serve at 3-5 having fought he way back from 0-4, going long on his forehand.

Although both men had numerous break point chances in the third set, there were no breaks of serve as the set reached 6-6.

Djokovic got the immediate mini-break to go ahead 2-0 and moved to 4-1 when at full stretch on his two-handed backhand contrived a lucky let cord winner when the ball trickled over and died on Verdasco's side of the net. The unimpressed Spaniard promptly confiscated the offending ball and placed it in his racquet bag.

As if to rub salt into the wound in the next point, Djokovic ran round his backhand and nailed an off-forehand return for a clean winner to go 5-1 up.

The discouraged Spaniard then double faulted to hand the Serb 6 match points. Djokovic advanced to a quarterfinal match with Igor Andreev when the Spaniard at 1-6 down ballooned a mishit forehand out of court.

Djokovic although satisfied with his victory is still looking to improve ahead of his next match.

"There are a lot of things I need to improve on", he said. "I'm aware of that, and I am happy because of that. I am really looking forward to work for it.

"Last year I really didn't expect to be in the quarterfinals; I was not the favourite. I won against really good players that played really good tennis. But I then I played Nadal and I was already physically exhausted. I retired because of my back problem, but I wasn't really ready. In my mind I was satisfied with my achievements. This year is very different, and I am one of the favourites. Playing Andreev is a good thing for me, you know, not to play Federer or Nadal. So we'll see what happens."

Andre Jones
Roland Garros
Paris