Djokovic says the double faults were not the problem after Basel loss to Struff: “It hurts that I lost”

Novak Djokovic did not blame the three double faults. After losing 6-7 (4), 7-5, 7-6 (5) to Jan-Lennard Struff in the second round of the Swiss Indoors in Basel, a defeat that leaves his ATP Finals place in serious doubt, the 24-time Grand Slam champion put it down to an opponent he says he had never seen play like that.

“It hurts that I lost, you know, he just played amazing tennis,” Djokovic told Sportal, as reported by Tennis365. “I don’t remember playing against someone who was this aggressive and this precise. He went with two first serves, and it was just one of those matches.”

Djokovic rejects the obvious explanation

The easy reading of the match was the end of the second set, when Djokovic served three double faults in a single game and let Struff level. Djokovic dismissed it. “No, I don’t think those three double service faults were the deciding factor,” he said. He pointed instead to the break points he could not convert, “many times in the second and also at the beginning of the third set”, when Struff produced what he called incredible shots.

He allowed himself one note of self-criticism. “Maybe there were one or two points where I could have been more aggressive, but all credit goes to him.”

The numbers explain why the result stung. Struff had lost all eight of their previous meetings. “The last eight times he beat me very, very easily,” the German said in his on-court interview, after taking this one in two hours and 36 minutes.

What it means for Turin

The defeat matters more than a second-round loss usually would. Jannik Sinner’s season-ending knee injury opened a qualifying place for the ATP Finals, and Djokovic had been chasing it. He sits 11th in the Race, 319 points behind Rafael Jodar, the 20-year-old Spaniard who holds the ninth and last spot.

That leaves the Paris Masters, which starts next week, as his likely last chance. Djokovic was already looking ahead. “I’ve only just come off the court, so I’m still disappointed, but I’ll be thinking about Paris in the next few days, and hopefully I can play better there.”

Our view: the honest answer is also the worrying one

There is something admirable in Djokovic refusing the excuse that was sitting in front of him. Double faults are a fixable, one-off explanation. Being out-hit by a 36-year-old who had never beaten him is harder to wave away, and Djokovic chose that answer anyway.

It is also the more worrying one for his Turin hopes. If Djokovic’s view is right, he lost because an opponent served and struck the ball with a freedom he could not contain from the back of the court, and that is a problem a week of practice does not solve. Djokovic at 39 can still beat anyone on a good day, but the margin he once had over players like Struff has gone, and a 319-point gap leaves no room for another off day in Paris.

The question for Paris is whether he can turn the break points he wasted in Basel into the matches he needs. He has done it before, many times. The difference now is that he has to do it in a single week.

Djokovic has been outspoken on the tour’s demands this autumn: read his view on why Sinner must think long term, and how he, Alcaraz and Fils read the Sinner injury differently.