Djokovic dominated the court in the opening set, stepping in and moving his tall opponent around as he broke Del Potro twice to clinch it 6-1 in 30 minutes.
Former U.S. Open champion Del Potro finally found his form at the start of the second and began to unload a series of heavy groundstrokes to push Djokovic back behind the baseline as he broke for a 3-0 lead.
Djokovic had three chances to break back at 2-4 but the Argentine's monstrous forehand provided some clean winners as he crucially held before serving out for the set in the next game.
A tense third was on serve and heading for a tiebreaker when Djokovic forced two match points at 6-5 only for Del Potro's forehand to once again dig him out of a hole.
But he could not repeat the trick in the tie break as Djokovic sealed victory 7-3 by sending a backhand winner down the line.
(Writing by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; Editing by John Mehaffey)
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