Novak Djokovic strolled into the third round of the Tokyo Olympics tennis tournament on Monday as Japanese star Naomi Osaka’s path to gold opened up further after a host of leading women’s seeds exited.
Djokovic smacked 14 aces in a 6-4, 6-3 win over Germany’s 48th-ranked Jan-Lennard Struff and will play Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina for a place in the quarter-finals.
The world number one had led calls for organisers to push back start times to avoid the worst of the punishing heat after blazing sunshine brought the extreme weather policy into play in round one.
But a gentle breeze and slightly overcast skies at Ariake Tennis Park made for less brutal conditions on the third day of the Games.