Could Tabilo cap injury-ridden season with third win against Djokovic?
Alejandro Tabilo will face Novak Djokovic in a fascinating clash Tuesday evening at the Vanda Pharmaceuticals Hellenic Championship. On paper, Djokovic would be a heavy favourite as a 24-time major champion compared to Tabilo, the No. 89 player in the PIF ATP Rankings. But the Chilean is one of three players who has faced Djokovic at least twice and not lost (also Marat Safin and Jiri Vesely).
The former World No. 1 Djokovic will try to change that statistic in Athens, but Tabilo is excited for the challenge.
“Just so happy to be able to win those kind of matches [before]. It’s going to be different this time on hard court,” Tabilo told ATPTour.com. “Just want to do a good match and hopefully keep going with that lead. But it’s pretty crazy to think about [his 2-0 lead against Djokovic].”
What fans might not know is that his second victory against Djokovic, at this year’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, was a lot more difficult than the 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.
To understand why takes going back to the Miami Open presented by Itau in March. Tabilo began feeling pain in his left wrist, which led him to begin taping it. The lefty prefers playing through such issues.
But after Tabilo beat Djokovic in Monte-Carlo, he lost to Grigor Dimitrov in three sets and the pain became bad enough that the Chilean went for a test.
“I did an MRI and it was almost a stress fracture,” Tabilo said. “So it was a pretty good win [against Djokovic].”
That was far from the only injury he has dealt with this season. Tabilo suffered a five-centimetre tear in his abdomen after Roland Garros and at Winston-Salem he twisted his ankle.
“The problem with me, I really like to just dig it out and not tell anybody about my pain. Since I was little, I’ve always wanted to just play, so I’ve been building up a tolerance, so anything that I feel a little pain, I don’t think it’s that big,” Tabilo said. “So until I feel pain, that’s when it’s more than usual. A few years ago in Roland Garros, I trained a few days with appendicitis, I didn’t know, I thought it was just a stomach ache, so it [became] peritonitis. It’s just a battle of knowing when to stop.”
Tabilo fell to No. 126 in August, but has quickly bounced back with a series of good results. The 28-year-old made an ATP Challenger Tour final in Guangzhou (Huangpu), then won the ATP 250 in Chengdu as a qualifier. In that event he battled through a final-set tie-break in the final round of qualifying against Lloyd Harris and then beat Lorenzo Musetti in a final-set tie-break in the final.
“Just really happy about the matches I’ve been able to get going. It’s been a tough year with injuries and everything, so it’s been tough to find the rhythm,” Tabilo said. “I feel like slowly I’m getting there, even though it’s the last tournament of the year. But hopefully I can use this to do a good preseason and bring it to 2026.”
The three-time ATP Tour titlist hopes he can end on an even higher note with a third win against Djokovic. How has he enjoyed the success he has against the Serbian?
“I don’t know. I think I’ve been trying to figure that out myself,” Tabilo said. “But I feel just in my subconscious, since I was little watching him play almost every time on TV, maybe you programme how you would play him or you know how he plays and you just go out in the match and try to play loose and you know you have nothing to lose, so just try and play what you want to do.”
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