World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who had returned to action at Indian Wells after five years, was stunned 6-4 3-6 6-3 by lucky loser Luca Nardi as the Serb suffered a shock third-round exit on Monday. The defeat ended Djokovic’s bid for a record sixth title at the tournament in the California desert. It also left him trophyless in 2024, having earlier suffered a semifinal loss to eventual champion Jannik Sinner at the Australian Open in January.
On Monday, after Nardi, who grew up idolising Djokovic and is ranked 123rd in the world, shockingly took the opening set, the 24-time Grand Slam champion bounced back quickly to break the Italian early in the second set to take a 2-0 lead. But Nardi got the break back in no time to make it 2-1, which is when the controversy erupted.
Serving to take a 3-0 lead, Djokovic found himself 0-40 down and incurred a fault on his first serve. On the Serb’s second serve, Nardi believed it was out and had stopped to hit a weak return over the net. Djokovic sliced back a return as well before the youngster chased it down to hit a winner and converted the break point.
Djokovic was taken aback by Nardi’s hesitance to play the return on the serve as he looked at the chair umpire in bewilderment expecting a hindrance call before being left vexed at the official for counting the point in favour of Nardi. Here is how the conversation went:
Djokovic: He stopped. He stopped.
Chair umpire: He didn’t make a call. He didn’t actually stop the point. Just because he’s stopped doesn’t mean the point stopped.
Djokovic: Just because he stopped doesn’t mean the point stopped? What are you talking about? He literally stopped, and that’s it, and he confused me completely because I stopped as well. How can you not make that judgement?
Chair umpire: Are you wanting me to call a hindrance?
Djokovic: Of course.
Chair umpire: Just because he stands there and doesn’t continue the play, that’s not grounds for a hindrance. If he was to come up saying ‘out’ or pointing ‘out’ or something along those lines, then yes I would agree with you 100%. But since he didn’t do anything to actually stop the point.
Despite the controversy, Djokovic bounced back to win the second and force a decider, but the Italian came roaring back to inflict a major upset in California and script the biggest ever win of his career.
