Rome: Fifteen days after he was defaulted from the US Open, Novak Djokovic had plenty to celebrate on Monday as he beat Argentine Diego Schwartzman 7-5, 6-3 to win his fifth Italian Open.
The world number one rallied from a double break down in the first set to defeat the eighth seed Schwartzman for a record-breaking 36th Masters 1000 crown.
“I did experience mentally some kind of ups and downs in the first four-five days after (the U.S. Open default) happened. I was in shock,” Djokovic said. “But I moved on and really I never had an issue in my life to move on from something. Regardless of how difficult it is I try to take the next day and hope for the best and move on.
“Having a tournament a week after that happened helped a lot ... just because I really wanted to get on the court and just get whatever traces of that - if there’s any - out, and I think I had a really good week.”
He passed childhood idol, Pete Sampras, for the second-most weeks at No. 1 with 287 - trailing only Roger Federer’s 310 weeks in the top spot - and he reasserted his dominance before the French Open starts in six days.
