Historic game for Turkish tennis

For the first time in tennis history, a Turkish player was paired with world top seed player last night. Turkish star Marsel İlhan and Serbian world top seed Novak Djokovic took the court yesterday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships 2015. The match was underway as of press time.

Marsel Ilhan met Feliciano Lopez in last the 16 stage of the tournament. Spanish player Lopez won the first set 6-3, but İlhan broke the serves and equalized the game in the second set, 7-5. In the final set, İlhan benefited from his opponents mistakes and dominated the game to win 6-3. The Turkish athlete thus qualified for the quarter-final stage after winning the match 2-1.

World number one Novak Djokovic eased past his Kazakh opponent Andrey Golubev 2-0 (6-1, 6-2). Djokovic never offered Golubev a break point opportunity and only gave up 11 points in eight service games. "Having one match under my belt before the encounter helped to feel a bit more comfortable to move around on the court quicker," Djokovic said.

Djokovic had never faced Marsel İlhan previously on the professional tour. Turkish entrant İlhan overcame two-time runner-up Feliciano Lopez in three sets to find his way into the quarter-final stage of the ATP 500 level event in Dubai. He rallied from a set down to defeat the 2004 and 2008 finalist 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 57 minutes. According to the ATP World Tour, Djokovic has held the No. 1 ranking spot for 135 weeks, six weeks shy of tying Nadal's record of 141 weeks. The winner of İlhan vs Djokovic will face the winner of the quarter-final match between Tomas Berdych and Sergiy Stakhovsky.