Rome Masters: Djokovic moves into third round, defeats lucky loser Moutet

Serb Novak Djokovic, the top seed, beat French lucky loser Corentin Moutet 6-3, 6-1 to move into the third round of the Rome Masters at the Foro Italico in Roma on Friday evening.

The scoreline was rather more decisive than the performance, with Djokovic returning to court after a month’s absence. He has still not yet reached a final this season, and Moutet looked to capitalise, taking a 3-1 lead in the first set before the match essentially got away from him – losing his consistency, and losing his temper. Although he didn’t quite resort to smashing racquets, he was enraged with the net post, and had to take a short break on his serve after an alarm on his mobile phone courtside disrupted play.

Djokovic, ranked No 1, will face Chilean Alejandro Tabilo, the No 29 seed, next.

In the previous round of the Italian Open, Moutet, ranked No 83, won against Russian Roman Safiullin (3-6, 7-6 (1), 6-2).

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Roma Masters 1000, other second-round results (Foro Italico, clay, EUR 7.877.020, most recent results first):

• Luca Nardi vs. Holger Rune
• Marcos Giron vs. Andrey Rublev
• Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Jan-Lennard Struff
• Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Botic van de Zandschulp
• Jaume Munar vs. Cameron Norrie
• Sebastian Baez vs. Dusan Lajovic
• Jack Draper vs. Daniil Medvedev
• Arthur Fils vs. Alexandre Muller
• Roberto Carballes Baena vs. Alex De Minaur
• Dominik Koepfer vs. Frances Tiafoe
• Hubert Hurkacz vs. Rafael Nadal
• Tommy Paul vs. Aslan Karatsev
• Juncheng Shang vs. Stefano Napolitano
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina vs. Hamad Medjedovic
• Thiago Seyboth Wild vs. Tomas Martin Etcheverry
• Matteo Arnaldi vs. Nicolas Jarry
• Francisco Cerundolo (20) beat Matteo Gigante (WC): 6-1, 6-3
• Miomir Kecmanovic beat Casper Ruud (5): 0-6, 6-4, 6-4
• Taylor Fritz (11) beat Fabio Fognini (WC): 6-3, 6-4
• Alejandro Tabilo beat Yannick Hanfmann: 6-3, 7-6 (4)
• Karen Khachanov (16) beat Alexander Shevchenko: 6-4, 6-4
• Francesco Passaro (Q) beat Tallon Griekspoor (23): 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5)
• Alexander Zverev (3) beat Aleksandar Vukic: 6-0, 6-4
• Sebastian Korda (24) beat Flavio Cobolli: 7-6 (6), 4-6, 6-4
• Thiago Monteiro (Q) beat Jordan Thompson (32): 6-1, 6-3
• Zhizhen Zhang beat Adrian Mannarino (19): 6-1, 6-3
• Ben Shelton (12) beat Pavel Kotov: 4-6, 6-3, 6-4
• Luciano Darderi beat Mariano Navone (28): 6-3, 6-2
• Grigor Dimitrov (8) beat Yoshihito Nishioka: 7-5, 6-4
• Terence Atmane (Q) beat Lorenzo Musetti (26): 7-5, 1-0 ret.
• Nuno Borges beat Alexander Bublik (15): 6-4, 6-4