Tirante stuns ailing Djokovic for the biggest win of his career in Cincinnati
Novak Djokovic lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to Thiago Agustin Tirante after vomiting during a second-set changeover and needing a medical timeout, a rare collapse for a man who had won 96.5 percent of his Masters 1000 matches after taking the first set.
Tirante – Djokovic, Cincinnati 2026 | © Tennis TV
Argentina’s Thiago Agustin Tirante beat Serb Novak Djokovic, the No. 3 seed, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the round of 32 at the Cincinnati Open on Saturday evening, the biggest win of his career in a match briefly overshadowed by a health scare for the 24-time Grand Slam champion
Djokovic appeared to vomit during a changeover in the second set, at 6-2, 2-2, before taking a medical timeout and playing on.
Tirante, ranked No. 65, took full advantage once play resumed, breaking to level the second set before closing it out and carrying the momentum into a tight decider. The win arrived in the same week he cracked the top 50 for the first time in his career, and it was his third victory over a top-10 opponent this season, after also beating Taylor Fritz in the Montreal fourth round just last week.
Rare type of loss by Djokovic
He had needed three tiebreaks to get past England’s Jan Choinski, 7-6 (9), 6-7 (7), 7-6 (4), in the first round, and will next face Spaniard Martin Landaluce.
The loss was a rare one for Djokovic in this particular position. He had gone 355-13, a 96.5% clip, after winning the first set at Masters 1000 level across the two decades from 2005 to 2025, with all 13 of those losses coming against 13 different players, never Roger Federer or Andy Murray. Tirante becomes the 14th name on that list, and just the second man ranked outside the top 30 to beat Djokovic at this event, after Argentina’s Diego Serra… in 2006.
