ATP Doha – Friday Schedule: Novak Djokovic seeks another final

Novak Djokovic seeks his third final at the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open in Doha. The Serbian player already won this tournament in 2016 and 2017 and he appears to be strong favorite this year too. But there are several reasons to believe that Djokovic may have a difficult path this weekend: he is not playing his best tennis having dropped one set both against Marton Fucsovics and Nikoloz Basilashvili in the previous rounds and, also, his Friday opponent Roberto Bautista Agut will not make him have an easy life.

The Spaniard defeated Stan Wawrinka in the quarter-finals playing a consistent tennis. In conditions like this, its quite suitable to him, I would say, Djokovic said on the Spaniard. He gets to many balls and he makes you play, makes you play.

Thats his strength. He puts always an extra ball in the court. The second semifinal features Tomas Berdych and Marco Cecchinato. The Czech, who is competing in his first tournament since 2018 Queens in June, has been playing a great tennis the whole event after going some tough moments, and Cecchinato defeated both Sergiy Stakhovsky and Dusan Lajovic in straight sets earlier this week.

Before the tournament the Italian said he wants to win as many matches as possible on hard courts, and he definitely started well.