Alejandro Tabilo, a Chilean tennis player, caused one of the surprising defeats at the Italian Open, Rome, 2024 season.
Appearing stunningly, the 29th seed was surprisingly able to beat the first seed, Novak Djokovic, 6-2, 6-3 in the third round of the Italian Open.
The world number 32 tennis player hit the ball neatly, both with his forehand and backhand, in the first meeting against the Serbian tennis player, Djokovic, who did not appear as usual after he appeared with quite low energy.
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The Chilean tennis player broke the serve of the tennis player who has bagged 24 Grand Slam titles, Djokovic four times and did not face a break point opportunity on the way to victory which was fought for 68 minutes.
“That was amazing,” exclaimed Tabilo. “I went onto the field just to look around, just trying to absorb the energy, and trying to process everything. I’m just trying to wake up right now.”
Thanks to this victory, the 26 year old tennis player advanced to the fourth round of the Masters 1000 tournament for the second time after he qualified for the first round of Indian Wells for the 2023 season.
The victory over the Serbian was another milestone for the Chilean so far in the 2024 season. He won the first ATP tournament title of his career in Auckland earlier this season and is now 17-9 on the season, after also qualifying for the final in Santiago.
“I just tried to control my tension, tried to keep swinging the racket,” added Tabilo, who became the first Chilean tennis player to knock out world number 1 since Fernando Gonzalez beat Roger Federer in the 2007 ATP Finals.
“For sure, every time you feel like you’re closer to the end, your arms start to get a little tighter and you start to swing shorter, so, I just tried not to think about it and went point by point. It’s crazy. I couldn’t believe what just happened.”
The defeat in Rome leaves Djokovic still aiming for his first title in the 2024 season. He will next be aiming for his 25th career Grand Slam title at the French Open, where he is the defending champion.
For a place in the quarter-finals of the Italian Open, Alejandro Tabilo will next face Karen Khachanov after the 16th seed also performed impressively when he eliminated Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo 6-2, 6-4.
