Doubt is a distant memory for Novak Djokovic as the world number one returns to Indian Wells on top of the tennis world, one year after his shock loss to qualifier Taro Daniel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Djokovic is making his first start since winning his third Grand Slam title on the trot at the Australian Open in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\n said he wasn’t fully recovered from elbow surgery when he opted to \ncompete in the California desert last year, but it’s not a decision he \nregrets given the events that followed in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I definitely \nwasn’t ready to compete at this level last year,” the Serb said Thursday\n as he looked forward to his title defense in the elite Masters series \nevent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was kind of convincing myself that I was, but I truly \nwasn’t. “I know most of my team members at the time were against me \nplaying in Indian Wells and Miami because it was too early after the \nsurgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I could have, should have made a different decision, \nbut I believe it also taught me some valuable lessons that helped me to \ncreate amazing results in the next seven, eight months and get from 22 \nin the world to No. 1 in the world in less than six months.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Djokovic\n would cement his return with a Wimbledon title and follow that with a \nUS Open crown. He dominated Rafael Nadal in January’s Australian Open \ntitle and must be favored for a sixth Indian Wells crown which would see\n him break the record he currently shares with fourth-seeded Roger \nFederer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Djokovic will open in the second round against \n128th-ranked American Bjorn Fratangelo, who beat fellow qualifier Elias \nYmer of Sweden 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He could face a dangerous \nthird-round clash with Australian Nick Kyrgios, seeded 31st, who is \ncoming off his first title in more than a year in Acapulco last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kyrgios\n will take on Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round after the German\n veteran dispatched France’s Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-4, 6-0. Kyrgios \nin-form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Australian beat Nadal, former world number three \nStan Wawrkina, ninth-ranked John Isner and number three Alexander Zverev\n on route the title in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also holds a 2-0 career record \nagainst Djokovic, including a straight-sets victory over the Serb star \nin Indian Wells two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If I get a chance to play against\n him I’ll look forward to that because he’s in-form,” Djokovic said. “On\n the other hand, I started the season very well. “I hope I can restart \nhere where I stopped in Australia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other first-round matches \nThursday American Sam Querrey defeated Italian Matteo Berrettini 7-6 , \n2-6, 6-4 to line up a meeting with 13th-seeded Milos Raonic a rematch of\n their quarter-final here last year won by the Canadian.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Doubt is a distant memory for Novak Djokovic as the world number one returns to Indian Wells on top of the tennis world, one year after his shock loss to qualifier Taro Daniel. Djokovic is making his first start since winning his third Grand Slam title on the trot at the Australian Open in January. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56686,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56687,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56685\/revisions\/56687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}