Djokovic actually won eight of the last nine games of the match from 4-all in the first set.
“I guess I broke his resistance in that 10th game,” Djokovic told ATPWorldTour.com. “He made a couple of crucial double faults that obviously allowed me to get ahead, but I thought I was just making him play in big moments and I served well when I needed to. So it was a very good performance.”
The Serb’s win over the world No. 5 was his first win over a Top 10 player since Rome last May (No. 7 Dominic Thiem) and his first win over a Top 5 player since Doha last January (No. 1 Andy Murray).
It was also his seventh win in eight career meetings against Dimitrov.
“I haven’t had too many big wins in the last 12 months,” Djokovic said. “In these circumstances where I’m looking to have matches like this and wins like this to build the confidence that I obviously need to compete at a high level, wins like this serve me well. I was very pleased with the way I played today.
“I feel like I’m getting better as the tournament progresses, and that’s a positive.”
Djokovic, who’s now through to the quarterfinals of his third straight tournament after falling before the quarterfinals in his first six tournaments of the season, now has 799 career match wins on the ATP tour, just one win away from becoming the 10th player in the Open Era to reach 800.
The first nine are Jimmy Connors (1,256), Roger Federer (who scored his 1,155th career match win on Thursday against Benoit Paire in Halle), Ivan Lendl (1,068), Guillermo Vilas (949), Rafael Nadal (903), John McEnroe (881), Andre Agassi (870), Ilie Nastase (846) and Stefan Edberg (801).
Standing in the way of Djokovic and that milestone 800th career match win will be Adrian Mannarino, who won a tight two-setter against French qualifier Julien Benneteau later in the day, 7-6 (4), 6-3.
Djokovic has beaten Mannarino in straight sets in both career meetings, both coming at Wimbledon, in the second round in 2016, and then in the fourth round in 2017.
