Djokovic fights back to beat Humbert in Basel

Novak Djokovic came back from a set down to beat Ugo Humbert 4-6 6-3 6-4 in Basel on Wednesday. The match took two and a half hours, according to the BBC.

Humbert, a Frenchman, took the first set 6-4. Djokovic then won the next two, 6-3 and 6-4, to finish the match. It was his opening match at the Swiss Indoors, an ATP 500 event, which is one of the tour's mid-level tournaments, ranking below the Masters 1000 events and the Grand Slams.

The win matters for the race to the ATP Finals, the season-ending event in Turin for the top eight players of the year. Djokovic is 11th in that race, which counts points won across the season, so he needs to climb to stay in contention. He was chasing one of five remaining places when he played in Basel, and he is bidding for a 17th appearance at the finals, Reuters reported.

It was also a return to a tournament he had not played since 2011. He entered Basel on a wild card, an invitation from the organisers, and was seeded fourth, a ranking that keeps top players apart in the early rounds. Before the match he practised with Stan Wawrinka, a fellow former champion, according to the ATP Tour. Djokovic won the Basel title in 2009 by beating Roger Federer.

The numbers around the win are striking. The victory was Djokovic's 20th tour-level win of the year. The BBC says it is his 21st consecutive season with at least 20 tour-level wins. He is 39 years old, and he won his 102nd tour-level title in Beijing in October, after a wait of around a year.

A Basel title would give him 103, matching Federer's total. That would leave him second on the all-time list of men's tour-level titles in the Open era, the period since 1968 when professionals and amateurs first played the same events.

Humbert's result is a lesson in how fine the margins are. He won the opening set and still lost the match. Djokovic's comeback took him from a set down to the win, and the next step is the rest of the Basel draw and the race to Turin.