Matteo Arnaldi: "Incredible, I beat my idol"

This is what Matteo Arnaldi said after eliminating Novak Djokovic in the second round of the Madrid Masters 1000: “Novak is my idol, I was already happy to be able to play against him, because it had never happened. Instead I beat him, it&#8217s incredible”.

“To pull it off, I had to play at my best– continued the San Remo-based world number 44 -I knew he is not in a great moment of form so I tried to carry on the exchanges and try to make him miss”.

“Obviously I was very tense at’the beginning, I almost chickened out, also because since I was 9 or 10 years old I started watching his matches – admitted Arnaldi, 24– but then as the match went on I calmed down. I was happy to get the break first, because I knew that sooner or later he would do it to me. Everything was perfect”.