Djokovic cruises as French duo crash out
Novak Djokovic fighting to be world number three
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Tuesday, 14, Apr 2009 08:19
Novak Djokovic showed his ready to fight for his world number three ranking as he crushed Spaniard Oscar Hernandez 6-1 6-2 in Monte Carlo.
The Serb is in real danger of being overtaken by world number four Andy Murray and after reaching the semi-finals in this tournament last year, Djokovic has a lot of ranking points to defend.
But the former Australian Open champion insisted after his victory that he wasn't thinking about falling down the rankings.
"I'm not really thinking about that, I'm thinking about my performance on the court," he said. I've been working a lot lately on going more to the net and shortening the points."
Meanwhile, home favourites and seeds Gael Monfils and Giles Simon were sent tumbling out after both suffered surprise defeats.
World number 10 Monfils, who looked to be struggling with his knees as he wore supports on both of them, went down to a 6-3 6-1 defeat to Janko Tipsarevic. Monfils was only able to win 12 points in a disappointing second set.
It was an equally poor performance from an out-of-sorts Giles Simon. The world number seven lost 7-5 6-1 to German Andreas Beck, who was only playing his first match since the Australian Open in January.
Russian Marat Safin prevailed in the battle of the former world number ones as he beat Lleyton Hewitt 6-4 7-5 in a tough match.
It was a brave performance from Hewitt as he had arrived in Monte Carlo less than 24 hours earlier after taking a lengthy flight from America after winning the tournament in Houston on Sunday.