Novak Djokovic's return to hard courts lasted barely two and a half sets before it turned into one of the biggest shocks of the season. The world No. 5 was beaten 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 by Argentina's Thiago Agustín Tirante in the second round of the Cincinnati Open, a defeat that took two hours and 44 minutes to complete and left the Serbian visibly struggling in the Ohio heat.
Djokovic started as the player everyone expected, breaking early and cruising through the first set 6-2. But Tirante, ranked 50th in the world, broke back in the sixth game of the second set and never let go of the momentum, closing out the second 6-4 before repeating the trick in the decider.
It was Djokovic's first match since his Wimbledon semi-final defeat to Jannik Sinner, and by the closing games he looked a shadow of the player who dismantled that first set. Reports from Cincinnati described him as physically drained as the contest crept toward the three-hour mark, unable to summon the extra gear that has bailed him out of similar situations for two decades.
The numbers make the loss sting even more. Since 2005, Djokovic had gone 355-13 after winning the opening set at Masters 1000 level — a win rate above 96 percent. Tirante becomes only the 14th player ever to complete that comeback against him, and just the second ranked outside the world's top 30 to do it, joining Argentina's Diego Serra, who managed the same feat back in 2006.
The defeat also snaps a 10-match winning streak Djokovic had built at the Cincinnati event, a tournament he has dominated for years. There was an odd historical footnote attached to the same day: Djokovic equalled Feliciano López's record of 139 career ATP Masters 1000 main-draw appearances, a milestone overshadowed entirely by the result.
For Tirante, it is the signature win of a career that has been quietly building all season. The 25-year-old from La Plata, a former world No. 1 junior who won the French Open boys' doubles title and the Orange Bowl singles crown in 2019, has pushed deep into the draws at the Madrid and Rome Masters this year and reached ATP semi-finals in Båstad and Houston.
The win lifted him into Cincinnati's top 50 bracket with a fresh career-high ranking, and he now moves on to face Spain's Martín Landaluce for a place in the fourth round.
For Djokovic, the loss raises fresh questions about his physical condition just weeks before the US Open, his last realistic shot at a Grand Slam title this season after the Wimbledon setback against Sinner. A second-round Masters exit to an unseeded opponent is a rare occurrence for a player who has built his career on precisely these kinds of straight-forward assignments turning routine.
