Novak Djokovic: ‘He was understanding’

Novak Djokovic arrived in Melbourne after winning in Adelaide last week, a success that earned him the 92nd title of his career. The Serbian star had to sweat more than expected to beat the American Sebastian Korda in the final, even disallowing a match point in the second set. During the semifinal against Daniil Medvedev, the former world number 1 suffered a small injury to his left hamstring. It’s been a few days, but the problem is still not fully resolved. During training with Medvedev on the Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday morning, Nole had his physiotherapist treat him several times and then decided to definitively interrupt the session (after around 36 minutes). There are still five days left until the 2023 Australian Open starts and Novak will do everything possible to be 100%. The ‘Djoker’ absolutely wants to win his tenth title at Melbourne Park, so as to catch up with his eternal rival Rafael Nadal at 22 Grand Slams. Recall that Djokovic has not lost in Australia since 2018 (last year he had to miss the Happy Slam due to his vaccination status).

Latest update on Djokovic

Today all the alarms went off in Novak Djokovic’s team after his training with Daniil Medvedev. The Serbian called the physio on several occasions after feeling discomfort in his hamstring again, which finally forced him to retire after 36 minutes of training. Nole has spoken about these problems: “It’s about the hamstring, the same one I had problems with last week in Adelaide. I just felt it a bit, it got stiff: I didn’t want to take any chances and make the situation worse. We played for a set, I apologized to him and he was understanding, he just wanted to avoid any major scares before the tournament.” One year after his controversial deportation from Australia, Novak Djokovic is back in the country and will take part in the Australian Open again at Melbourne Park. “I just stayed for several weeks at home, didn’t really go around too much, just hoped that the situation would calm down, which it did. But the ‘traces’ stay there, right?” he said. “The traces followed for several months after. And I didn’t know it was going to affect my game as well. Every press conference I was asked a question or two about Australia, about what happened,” Djokovic said. “So even if I [had] moved on the people reminded me of that. I just had to be patient and wait.”