Italian Open: Novak Djokovic faces straight loss against Alejandro Tabilo in 3rd round of Rome

The Italian Open has already given us some shocking results in the tournament even with some big players failing to get past the lower-seeded players. We have even seen the likes of Stefanos Tsitsipas who had to fight hard to earn a victory in his 2nd round match against Jan-Lennard Struff. There have been surprising results this clay season which we could never expect at all.

The match between Novak Djokovic and Alejandro Tabilo was also looking to be a one-sided victory where the Serbian was the comfortable favourite to win the tournament. Tabilo, who was playing the world number 1 ranked ATP player for the first time might have come into the 3rd round with some decent performances, but it still seemed like an easy victory for the Serbian Powerhouse on paper.

Djokovic's surprise defeat

We all had witnessed some surprising results in this clay season already, especially with the likes of Djokovic losing to lower-seeded players. However, it is one thing to beat a certified legend, but Djoko faced a humiliating loss against the Chilean who beat him in two straight sets with scores of 6-2 and 6-3. This is a result we never expected to witness with Djokovic's record in this tournament where he was looking for his 7th title in Rome.

This was one of the worst defeats for Djokovic who was completely outplayed by the South American rookie and it was disappointing to see him play in this fashion. For Tabilo on the other hand it might be the greatest victory of his career as he beat the 24-grand slam winner in a one-sided contest. It is safe to say that the jokers' bag of tricks proved ineffective today. The fans will still have some hope for him with the French Open coming up and we would like to see Djoko at his best in that major tournament.