SHANGHAI, October 11, 2016

World number one Novak Djokovic celebrated his comeback to the tour with an opening win at the Shanghai Rolex Masters, which is the flagship Asian event on the ATP World Tour and brings the three-week Asian swing to a close.

The Serbian hadn’t played a match since exactly a month ago when he fell to Stan Wawrinka in the US Open final. Djokovic didn’t vie for his seventh China Open title in Beijing last week due to an elbow injury. In one of four second-round matches on Tuesday, Djokovic started his Shanghai campaign with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Fabio Fognini. The encounter lasted one hour and 15 minutes.

“I was just pleased to be back on the court, considering I skipped Beijing that I planned to play. I had great memories and success in the past in this tournament, on this court,” Djokovic said. “I was just trying to focus on my game and things that I worked on the last couple of weeks. I believe things will progress as days go by.”

Djokovic, who has reached the stage of the final four or better in all six of his Shanghai showings, will next face Canadian Vasek Pospisil or Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.

“As I said before, it’s very simple. I try to look at things from a different perspective, from a more human perspective rather than from a perspective of a professional tennis player,” explained Djokovic, who seemed to deal with motivation struggles in recent times. “When I get on the court, of course I want to give my best and eventually try to win the match, but that comes as a consequence of how I feel and how I approach, how I prepare, just a general mindset and approach.”

Here are Tuesday’s highlights: