Tabilo maintains perfect record against Djokovic with win in Monte Carlo

MONTE CARLO : Unseeded Alejandro Tabilo beat twice champion Novak Djokovic 6-3 6-4 in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters on Wednesday to maintain a remarkable 100 per cent record win record over the 24-times major winner.

Djokovic, who suffered a shock defeat in the Miami Open final last month, had received a bye into the last-32 but came up short against the Chilean who had also beaten him in Rome last year.

"It has been a tough year, so a little bit of the nerves were there," Tabilo said in an on-court interview.

"I remembered last time what I did well and thankfully I served well today and it helped me a lot. It was an unreal match."

Tabilo has yet to drop a set against Djokovic as the 27-year-old registered back-to-back wins over the Serbian on clay.

Marat Safin and Jiri Vesely are the only other players to have faced Djokovic more than once and not lost, with both having 2-0 records.

Djokovic was chasing his 100th Tour level title while winning the Monte Carlo title would have made the 37-year-old the only player to win each Masters event at least three times.

"I expected myself at least to have put in a decent performance. Not like this, it was horrible," said Djokovic, who made 29 unforced errors.

"I did not have high expectations. I knew I'm going to have a tough opponent and I knew I'm going to probably play pretty bad. But this bad, I didn't expect.

"I was hoping it was not going to happen, but it was quite a high probability I'm going to play this way... A horrible feeling to play this way, just sorry for all the people that have to witness this."

A second victory for Tabilo looked unlikely as the Chilean came into the tournament with a 2-9 win-loss record having lost his first six matches of the year before he