Novak Djokovic on the brink of 1,100 career wins after opening victory over Moutet in Rome

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has reached a lot of milestones in his career, and he’s now on the brink of yet another one.

With a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Corentin Moutet in his opening match in Rome on Friday night, Djokovic recorded the 1,099th tour-level win of his career, now a win away from becoming just the third man in the Open Era to reach 1,100 career wins. He would join Jimmy Connors and Roger Federer on that very exclusive list.

MOST CAREER WINS IN OPEN ERA (men, tour-level):

• 1,274: Jimmy Connors
• 1,251: Roger Federer
• 1,099: Novak Djokovic
• 1,075: Rafael Nadal
• 1,068: Ivan Lendl
• 951: Guillermo Vilas
• 908: Ilie Nastase
• 883: John McEnroe
• 870: Andre Agassi
• 801: Stefan Edberg

And that wasn’t the only milestone Djokovic hit on Friday, as his victory over Moutet extended his winning streak against Frenchmen to 25 matches in a row. The 24-time Grand Slam champion hasn’t lost to a Frenchman since falling to Benoit Paire in Miami in 2018.

It wasn’t a typical straight-set victory for Djokovic on Friday night—using his shot variety to perfection, including a barrage of early drop shots, Moutet actually broke in the opening game of the match, and then after Djokovic broke right back in the next game, Moutet broke again in the third game and then held for 3-1.

But Djokovic caught fire from there, winning the next seven games in a row for a 6-3, 2-0 lead, and after Moutet snapped the streak with a hold for 2-1, Djokovic won another four games in a row to close out the victory after an hour and 24 minutes on court.

The world No. 1 finished the match with 21 winners to 13 unforced errors, including a two-to-one differential of 12-6 on his forehand.

“I haven’t practiced with a lefty in a while, so it took me a little bit of time to adjust to the different rotation of the ball, so to say,” Djokovic said afterwards in his on-court interview. “The first four games were bad for me, a bad start. I lost both of my service games. But then I played well. I lost only one game from 1-3 down.

“Corentin is a very talented player. Great hands and very unpredictable, you don’t know what’s coming up next. So I had to stay focused, which I did, and it’s a good opening match.”

Standing between the No. 1-seeded Djokovic and his 1,100th career win will be No. 29-seeded Alejandro Tabilo, who defeated Yannick Hanfmann in his second-round match, 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Djokovic and Tabilo will be playing each other for the first time.