Novak Djokovic loses to Alejandro Tabilo in Rome after a water bottle incident

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has pulled out of the Italian Open after a 2-6, 3-6 loss to world No. 32 Alejandro Tabilo.

Tabilo, who won a title at the Challenger 175 in Aix-en-Provence, France, played fearlessly throughout and benefited from an unusually erratic serving performance from the Serb.

“I was just trying to keep my nerve,” Tabilo said. “You feel like you’re closer to the end, your arm gets a little tighter… It’s crazy. I can’t believe what just happened.”

Djokovic, who was accidentally hit in the head by a metal water bottle after defeating Corentin Moutet on Friday evening, managed only 48 percent of his first serves in the opening set and had to defend five break points. Tabilo converted two, both with stunning groundstrokes, one from either wing. Tabilo was also much more confident behind his own second serve and won six of the seven points he had to play with it.

After the game, he refused to attribute the defeat to the incident, but said that his coordination on the court was worse than expected.

“Today under a lot of pressure it was pretty bad, not in terms of the pain, but in terms of the balance. Just no coordination. A completely different player than he was two nights ago.”

Although the service points were reasonably even (Tabilo won 32 to Djokovic’s 30), the Chilean won 20 points on the return, compared to just 10 from the world No. 1.

Tabilo then used his momentum to break in the first game of the second set and held his nerve to claim the biggest win of his career to date.

Djokovic committed a double fault on match point, which made his serving woes even worse. He appeared listless for most of the match, rarely showing emotion and perhaps revealing that, at this point in his career, he cared relatively little about tournaments other than Grand Slams and the Olympics.

He faces Russian world number 18 Karen Khachanov in the next round, while Djokovic looks ahead to the French Open, where he is the defending champion and which starts next Monday.

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(Silvia Lore/Getty Images)