Djokovic leaves room for improvement

Novak Djokovic was made to work hard for his place in the second round at Wimbledon, coming from a set down to see off Frenchman Julien Benneteau.

The fourth seed lost an epic first set, but hit back to win 6-7 (8/10) 7-6 (7/1) 6-2 6-4 on Centre Court against the world number 81.

The opening set was an intriguing contest with both players producing an array of spectacular forehands as well as howling errors.

It was such an even set that the crowd had to wait until game 12 for the first break-point opportunity, which fell to Djokovic only for the Serbian to hit his return into the net.

A tie-break quickly followed, and it was Benneteau who gained an early advantage when his opponent planted another forehand into the net.

A couple of unforced errors then allowed Djokovic back in, and the pair nervously fought things out until Benneteau finally got the better of the Serbian after one hour and one minute on court with a winning shot down the line after Djokovic had been caught out by a drop shot.

The second set followed the same pattern as the first with another mixture of unreturnable shots and unforgivable mistakes from the players.

It was no surprise when it needed another tie-break to separate the pair, but this time Djokovic was not prepared to mess around, racing through the points thanks to a series of missed forehands from the Frenchman.

The world number four then had to stave off a break point at the start of the third set, and it appeared to be the proverbial boot he needed, hitting back with breaks in the second and fourth games on his way to a 5-0 lead.

Benneteau, who overcame a fitness scare in the second game when he turned over on his right ankle, got his first game on the board in the sixth, and then proceeded to pull a break back in the next thanks to a string of double faults from Djokovic.

But the Serbian secured another break in the eighth on another missed shot from Benneteau to take a two sets to one lead.

It went with serve for much of the fourth, although both players wasted opportunities to get ahead in the set.

The 10th game finally brought an end to proceedings in dramatic fashion. Djokovic missed one match point with a return into the net, but was awarded a second when Benneteau tried to get back to a forehand but instead skidded into the end barrier.

The Frenchman fell to the court in agony and it looked like the match could be over, but after receiving treatment he bravely returned to play and then saved the second match point with a winning forehand.

Djokovic won himself a third break point and this time Benneteau was unable to repeat the heroics, hitting his shot wide to hand the Serbian the win.

Djokovic will now face Germany’s Simon Greul in the next round.