Djokovic cruises past Coric to win his 4th Shanghai title

Novak Djokovic continued his scintillating run of form as he breezed past Croatian Borna Coric 6-3, 6-4 to win the Shanghai Masters title for the fourth time on Sunday.

With a clever mix of groundstrokes, the 31-year-old Serb broke Coric’s serve in the sixth game and made a series of forays to the net as he consolidated his lead.

The Serb grabbed the opening set with a hold to love, having dropped just four points on his serve overall.

The 21-year-old Croatian Coric had his right thigh heavily strapped and had been suffering a stiff neck for what was the biggest match of his young career.

Coric had the extensive thigh strapping changed for the second set, but he was immediately broken when he somehow sent a routine volley out.

He had his first sniff of an opportunity with a break point in the sixth game of the second set, but second seed Djokovic snuffed it out when Coric again fired wide.

Coric, who collected one of the biggest wins of his career by defeating Roger Federer in the semifinals, looked far from his best in his first ATP Masters final as he dropped his serve in the opening game of the second set.

The 21-year-old saved three match points to hold serve in the ninth game before Djokovic served out to clinch his fourth title of the season. 

Djokovic broke the 19th-ranked Coric — his good friend and sometime-training partner — in the sixth game of the first set on the way to another no-nonsense victory.

The end was anti-climactic — Djokovic winning the championship point after a video review, Coric having challenged the call.

Djokovic buried his head in his hand at the absurdity of it.

“This was definitely one of the best service weeks that I’ve had in my career,” Djokovic, who did not drop his serve during the tournament, said.

“I was saying before that I have never played on faster courts here in Shanghai, so this year more than ever I needed a lot of success with the first serves in.”

Djokovic, who has returned to his brutal best this season, will surpass Federer as World No, 2 when the next edition of the ATP rankings are released on Monday.

“Obviously the last three, four months have been terrific for me,” Djokovic added. “Not many holes in the game in general, especially this week. Everything worked perfectly.”

The 14-time Grand Slam champion has been victorious in 18 ATP matches in a row and in recent months won Wimbledon, the Cincinnati Masters, the US Open and now Shanghai as he continues to chase Rafa Nadal’s World No. 1 crown, with the Spaniard skipping the Asian swing to recover from a knee injury.

Djokovic is homing in on a return to No. 1, having fallen as low as 22nd in May as he struggled following elbow surgery in February.

He also missed the second half of 2017 with elbow and off-court issues.

It is nearly two years since Djokovic topped the rankings and he has made it his mission to topple the injured Nadal before the year is out.