Novak Djokovic suffered from punishing heat and humidity on Saturday but made a match of it before falling 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to Thiago Tirante in what could be the Serb’s last appearance at the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters.
The second-round battle lasted for more than two and a half hours, and it proved too much for the 24-time Grand Slam champion, who was playing his first match since he lost to Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon semifinals more than a month ago.
Top-seeded Alexander Zverev, the French Open champion who fell to Sinner in the Wimbledon final, was more fortunate, squeezing out an opening 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Cameron Norrie in a match that took two hours and 45 minutes and ended at 2:15am.
Britain’s Norrie has now lost all eight of his matches against the German, winner of the Cincinnati title five years ago, who is hoping a return to Ohio will help him shake off an abrupt exit in Canada last week.
Norrie had wrapped up the opening set before Zverev began to find his footing to level the match.
Norrie saved six break points in a 12-minute game to begin the deciding set but was broken twice as Zverev advanced.
‘I needed to get a match rhythm,’ Zverev said. ‘The confidence was not there after Canada. ‘The first set was not great, but the other two were at a high level, and I’m happy about that.’