Novak Djokovic registered a hard-fought win against China’s Wu Yibing to qualify for the second round of Wimbledon on Monday. The Serbian claimed a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 win against the Chinese player.

Djokovic admitted it was a challenging game for him and gave credit to Wu Yibing for bringing his best to the court. The former World no.1 won the opening set but Wu bounced back strongly to win the second as he played aggressively. However, Djokovic won the next two sets to advance through to the next round.

“It felt really challenging today, Wu deserves a round of applause for his incredible performance,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview. “As for how I’m feeling, I’m feeling happy but not the freshest I guess. It didn’t feel like the first round to be honest.

“It felt like we played two different matches; one with the open roof and the closed roof. It affects the conditions and the moisture of the grass it becomes more slippery so, you kind of have to adjust and adapt to that but it’s not easy because once you’re in the point you want to give your best.”

Djokovic admitted that Wu put him under the cosh as he was hitting the ball aggressively and flat. However, the Serbian was able to stand tall to the challenge.

“He put me under a lot of pressure,” Djokovic added. “I’ve never faced him before; I knew that he loves hitting the ball very flat and very aggressively from the back of the court and he loves protecting the line. But he definitely surprised me with the level of every shot he had in his game from his return serves, forehand, backhand and at some point he didn’t really have a weakness.

“I was lucky he missed the overhead and break point and I probably should have lost that fourth set as he had many break points.”

Djokovic will face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the second round on Wednesday.