INDIAN WELLS (AFP) — Novak Djokovic clawed out with a 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 victory over 72nd-ranked American Aleksandar Kovacevic on Monday to reach the fourth round at Indian Wells for the first time since 2017.

Djokovic, playing his first tournament since falling to Carlos Alcaraz in the Australian Open final, had all he could handle from the 27-year-old New Yorker, who peppered the Serbian superstar with 16 aces.

Djokovic made an early break stand up to take the first set, but Kovacevic had found his groove and rolled through the second against a clearly frustrated Djokovic.

Djokovic regrouped in the third — finally finding the break he needed in the final game.

“I knew coming into the match that if he serves well and if he picks his spot in the box, it’s going to be tough to break him,” Djokovic said.

“I wasn’t maybe feeling my rhythm on that return very well today, but he was just making my life very difficult, returning the serve.”

“He was just acing me all over, getting a lot of free points.”

“Today was really anybody’s game until the last couple of points. That last game in the third, where he missed some first serves, gave me looks on the second, and I used it. That’s pretty much it.”

With five Indian Wells titles, Djokovic is tied for the record with Swiss great Roger Federer.

But the Serbian superstar hasn’t made it to the quarter-finals in the California desert since his last title run in 2016, and now he’s had to come through a pair of three-setters to return to the Last 16.

He’ll face defending champion Jack Draper for a place in the quarter-finals after the Briton beat Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo 6-1, 7-5.

Draper’s victory here last year — featuring a semi-final win over Carlos Alcaraz — launched his rise to fourth in the world.

But he then missed the better part of six months with an arm injury and arrived in California ranked 14th, his win over Cerundolo marking the first time since June that he’s posted back-to-back ATP victories.

Cerundolo served for the second set at 5-4, but a few mistakes gave Draper an opening and the Briton broke back, saving a pair of break points in the next game before finishing it off on Cerundolo’s serve.

A pair of top-10 seeds were sent packing as Britain’s Cameron Norrie ousted eighth-ranked Australian Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-4 and Aussie qualifier Rinki Hijikata 10th-ranked Alexander Bublik 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.

Hijikata, ranked 117th in the world, claimed his first win over a top-10 player to advance to a meeting with Norrie.

Meanwhile, Alcaraz had to dig deep to extend his 2026 unbeaten run, rallying from a set and a break down to beat Arthur Rinderknech 6-7 (6/8), 6-3, 6-2 in the third round at Indian Wells on Monday.

The big-serving Frenchman’s aggressive game forced world No. 1 Alcaraz to call on every shot in his arsenal to turn a tense contest his way.

Alcaraz will face 13th-seeded Norwegian Casper Ruud for a place in the quarterfinals.

“Really happy that I was able to turn things around,” Alcaraz said.

The Spaniard nearly managed to steal the first-set tiebreaker, in which he had trailed 2-5, but a wayward forehand on set point gave Rinderknech his chance to pocket the set with a pair of winners.