A German surprise! Struff defeats Djokovic – for the first time

The Warstein native put up an epic fight against the record Grand Slam champion and was rewarded for his efforts after more than two and a half hours.

Jan-Lennard Struff has capped off his strong late-season form at the ATP tournament in Basel with a surprise victory, defeating record Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic for the first time.

The 36-year-old from Warstein defeated the Serb 6–7 (4–7), 7–5, 7–6 (7–5) after 2 hours and 36 minutes in a thrilling, high-calibre round-of-16 thriller, advancing to the quarter-finals. Struff converted his third match point to secure a celebrated maiden victory in their ninth head-to-head encounter.

Struff stuns Djokovic in Basel

In front of an ecstatic crowd, the two players were evenly matched from the outset. Djokovic took the closely contested first set in a tie-break, but Struff was not fazed by this. The German produced some brilliant tennis at times, fended off all four break points against him in the second set and broke his high-profile opponent’s serve for the first time at 6–5.

Winning the set alone was a minor triumph for Struff: In eight previous encounters with the Serb, he had won just a single set.

The standard remained high in the deciding set too. Djokovic was seen arguing with his coach, Viktor Troicki, in a moment of visible frustration, whilst Struff fended off another break point and kept his nerve on his own serve. Once again, the tie-break had to decide the outcome – this time with the German coming out on top.

Struff had recently turned heads by reaching the final of the ATP tournament in Brussels and, in his opening match in Basel, had defeated his Davis Cup team-mate Yannick Hanfmann 6–4, 6–3.

Earlier, Daniel Altmaier had been knocked out in the round of 16. The 28-year-old from Kempen lost 5–7, 4–6 to the eighth-seeded Czech Jiří Lehečka, thereby missing out on his second consecutive quarter-final appearance. Altmaier is still in contention for the final spot in the German Davis Cup team for the finals in Bologna (24 to 29 November).