MELBOURNE, Australia — The bottom line on Sunday at the Australian Open was that Novak Djokovic prevailed over Gilles Simon 6-3, 6-7 (1), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to reach his 27th consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal.
But there was another line on the statistics sheet after this fourth-round marathon that was much more surprising.
Djokovic, a relentless force from the baseline and the world’s dominant player, finished with 100 unforced errors.
“That’s a good number for me, not for him, but unfortunately one more time it was not enough,” said Simon, looking flushed and sounding wistful after four hours and 32 minutes of deep effort and deep thinking.