struggles-and-successes
The game plan that Tabilo invented as a child to beat Djokovic
Interview with the Chilean before his duel with ‘Nole’, with whom he has a 2-0 advantage in the Lexus ATP HeadToHead between them
November 03, 2025
Andrew Eichenholz/ATP Tour
Alejandro Tabilo has regained his best form after a season plagued by injuries.
By Andrew Eichenholz
Alejandro Tabilo will take on Novak Djokovic in a fascinating evening matchup at the Vanda Pharmaceuticals Hellenic Championship on Tuesday. In theory, Djokovic would be the big favorite, with 24 Grand Slam titles, compared to Tabilo, number 89 in the PIF ATP Rankings. However, the Chilean is one of three players who have faced Djokovic at least twice without losing (along with Marat Safin and Jiri Vesely).
Former world No. 1 Djokovic will try to change that statistic in Athens, but Tabilo is excited about the challenge.
“I’m very happy to have been able to win these types of matches before. This time it will be different on hard courts,” Tabilo told ATPTour.com. “I just want to have a good match and hopefully keep the lead. But it’s incredible to think about the 2-0 lead against Djokovic.”
What fans may not know is that his second victory against Djokovic, at this year’s Monte Carlo Masters, was much more difficult than the 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.
To understand why, you have to go back to the Miami Open presented by Itaú in March. Tabilo began to feel pain in his left wrist, which led him to tape his wrist. The left-handed player preferred to play despite these discomforts.
But after beating Djokovic in Monte Carlo, he lost to Grigor Dimitrov in three sets and the pain intensified so much that the Chilean underwent a test.
“I had an MRI and it turned out to be almost a stress fracture,” Tabilo said. “So it was a pretty good win [contra Djokovic]”.
That was far from the only injury he has suffered this season. Tabilo suffered a five-centimetre tear in his abdomen after Roland Garros and in Winston-Salem he sprained his ankle.
“My problem is that I like to hold on and not tell anyone about my pain. Since I was little, I have always wanted to play, so I have developed a tolerance that prevents me from feeling mild pain,” Tabilo said. “It’s not until I feel pain that I realize it’s more than normal. A few years ago, at Roland Garros, I trained for a few days with appendicitis; I didn’t know it, I thought it was just a stomach ache, but it turned out to be peritonitis. It’s a matter of knowing when to stop.”
Tabilo fell to 126th place in August, but quickly recovered with a series of good results. The 28-year-old tennis player reached the final of the ATP Challenger Tour in Guangzhou (Huangpu) and then won the ATP 250 in Chengdu after passing the qualifying phase. In that tournament, he overcame a tiebreaker in the last set of the final round of qualifying against Lloyd Harris and then beat Lorenzo Musetti in another tiebreaker in the final set of the final.
“I’m very happy with the games I’ve been able to play. It’s been a difficult year with injuries and so on, so it’s been difficult for me to find my rhythm,” Tabilo said. “I feel like little by little I’m improving, even though it’s the last tournament of the year. I hope I can take advantage of this to have a good preseason and arrive in good shape for 2026.”
The three-time ATP Tour champion hopes to finish on an even higher note with a third victory against Djokovic. How have you enjoyed the success you have had against the Serbian?
“I don’t know. I think I’ve been trying to figure it out myself,” Tabilo said. “But I feel like, in my subconscious, since I was little I saw him play almost always on television, maybe you plan how you would play against him or you know how he plays and you just go out to the game and try to play loose, knowing that you have nothing to lose, so you just try to play what you want to do.”
