Novak Djokovic defeated Hubert Hurkacz in his final round-robin match at the ATP Finals but must wait to see if he qualifies for the last four.
The defending champion bounced back from Tuesday’s loss to Jannik Sinner to see off Hurkacz, a replacement for the injured Stefanos Tsitsipas, 7-6 (1) 4-6 6-1.
Djokovic now needs to hope Sinner beats Holger Rune later so he can advance to the semi-finals of the season-ending tournament for the year’s top eight players.
“My kids are arriving tonight, so I don’t think I’ll watch,” Djokovic said. “I did my job and I’m going to spend tonight with the family. Then tomorrow I can worry about whether I qualified or not.”
Djokovic appeared frustrated early on when he had no answer to Hurkacz’s big serve, but then his Polish opponent made a few errors and Djokovic won 10 straight points to jump out to a big lead in the tiebreaker.
Djokovic double-faulted to hand Hurkacz a break and a 3-2 lead in the second. Then Hurkacz saved two break points with aces a couple of games later and continued to hold to close out the set.
Hurkacz served routinely at 140mph (225kph) and cranked out 24 aces to Djokovic’s six. But Djokovic broke to take control midway through the third and improved to 7-0 in his career against Hurkacz.
“He’s got one of the biggest serves in world,” Djokovic said. “It’s very, very tough to return, especially here at an altitude of nearly 300 meters (1,000 feet). I was waiting for chances when he missed his first serve – that was my only chance.”
Sinner and Djokovic have two wins each, Rune has one win and Hurkacz and Tsitsipas have none.
In the other group, Daniil Medvedev has already advanced with two wins. Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev have one win each and Andrey Rublev is winless.
