Red-hot Kyrgios marches on in Dubai

“I think I started pretty well, the first set was good, I didn’t make many mistakes, I got the break and closed the set, saving one break point”, Lopez told Sport360 after his victory.

Djokovic only reached the milestone of 600 wins in November 2014 and has taken just 479 days to rack up another century after losing just six matches since then to join Roger Federer (1,067) and Rafael Nadal (775) as the only active players to reach the 700 mark.

The Czech, a two-time finalist, has reached at least the semi-finals in four of the last five years and he extended this year’s run with a 6-2 6-2 win over his Italian opponent.

Third seed Tomas Berdych was a comfortable 6-1 6-4 victor over Joao Sousa while fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut saw off Simone Bolelli 6-2 6-4. After being up in the scoreboard and after losing so many chances, my head was going nuts a little bit at that time.

“Kyrgios is doing well, for me it’s going to be a big challenge”.

World number one tennis star Novak Djokovic has earned his 700th career win by beating Malek Jaziri at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. “I wasn’t playing well at all”.

“I played some of my best tennis at the Open previous year against Novak in the night session”. Because I’m trying to get closer to them, I’m trying to reach higher levels and that’s the only thing. “I practice every day and I work very hard every day to play these matches so I’m really looking forward, to play that match”, said Lopez.

The 18th-ranked Bautista Agut has won two of his four career titles this year – at Auckland, New Zealand, and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Eighth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber is also through to the second round with a 6-1 7-5 over Marsel Ilhan, while Croatian Borna Coric beat Czech Jiri Vesely 6-4 6-4.