The Dutch player who toppled Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open last year before beating Rafael Nadal in Davis Cup in the Spanish great’s last match, beat 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic 6-2, 3-6, 6-1.<\/p>\n
The Serb star, seeded sixth, joined world number two and top seed Alexander Zverev and fourth seed Casper Ruud in exiting in the second round.<\/p>\n
Thirty-seven unforced errors were too much for Djokovic to overcome. After 14 in the first set he cleaned things up in the second, grabbing a quick break on the way to a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Djokovic pumped his fist after belting a forehand winner to the corner for his first break chance of the match and after consolidating the break nodded his head in satisfaction.<\/p>\n
However, van de Zandschulp wasn’t about to go quietly and the rallies remained tense affairs.<\/p>\n
Trailing 0-40 in the sixth game of the second set, Djokovic clawed out another break in a game that went to deuce five times, but he was broken as he served for the set, gifting van de Zandschulp a third break opportunity with a forehand miss.<\/p>\n
Clearly frustrated at times, Djokovic muscled a forehand winner to the baseline to secure the second set and level the match.<\/p>\n
It was only a brief respite. Van de Zandschulp kept the pressure on both from the baseline and at the net and Djokovic’s errors began to pile up again.<\/p>\n
Van de Zandschulp took control in the third with a break for 3-1. He dived for an unlikely winner to open the game before Djokovic missed an easy volley. Unable to convert his first break chance, van de Zandschulp gave himself another with a stinging volley and caught Djokovic in midcourt with a lob.<\/p>\n
Djokovic couldn’t stop the bleeding as van de Zandschulp reeled off the last five games.<\/p>\n
With his eighth victory over a top-10 opponent, van de Zandschulp has earned back-to-back ATP victories for the first time this year.<\/p>\n
While Djokovic shares the Indian Wells record of five titles with Roger Federer, he hasn’t hoisted the trophy since 2016.<\/p>\n
He hoped the coaching of former rival Andy Murray would help him go deep this year, but instead it was an even earlier exit than in 2024 — when he lost to lucky loser Luca Nardi in the third round.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2025 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Five-time champion Novak Djokovic tumbled out of the Indian Wells ATP Masters on Saturday, falling in his first match to lucky loser Botic van de Zandschulp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n