Novak Djokovic advanced to the fourth round of the Shanghai Masters on Sunday, October 5 even after facing tough and humid conditions.
The Serbian player defeated German professional tennis player Yannik Hanfmann with a score of 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in a match that lasted two hours and 42 minutes.
Djokovic started that match slowly in the first set and Hanfmann won the first set by serving an ace and hitting 17 winners.
Djokovic who appeared to struggle with the hot and humid conditions, cooling himself with water and eventually won the second set.
In the third set, Hanfmann made more mistakes and after hitting a forehand out of bounds that gave Djokovic a lead at 3-1, Djokovic held his serve to win the match.
After winning the match, the 38-year-old expressed, "Battling through is something I am quite familiar with throughout my career. I hung in there and showed a lot of guts," as per BBC Sports.
“It’s brutal when you have over 80 per cent of humidity day after day,” admitted Djokovic.
Djokovic said of Hanfmann, "He played well from the beginning, it was so hard to read his serve and he was swinging freely - it was high-percentage stuff and tough to play against someone like that."
"The crowd got me up, and towards the end of the second set I started to get into it more," he added.
Djokovic will now face unseeded Spaniard Jaume Munar in the last 16.
