Novak Djokovic once again had to deal with his left leg problem in Australia, but he still made it through the second round and beat a gutsy Enzo Couacaud in four sets. After dominating the first set, the man from Belgrade began to stretch to warm up the muscle in his left leg and was forced to call a medical timeout during the second.
The Serb made some unusual mistakes and showed difficulties in his movement to the left side of the pitch. However, the intervention of the physio helped Djokovic, who put the lost tie-break behind him and reacted wonderfully in the third and fourth games, leaving only two games to his rival.
“Obviously I’m happy that we managed to win this match in four sets. Congratulations to Enzo for playing very well in the second set. A lot happened during the match. We both called a medical timeout. The situation with my injury is not ideal.
I don’t want to go into details. I wish my feelings were different, but it is what it is. I have to think day by day,” Djokovic explained at a press conference. “The good thing is that in Grand Slam tournaments you always have a day off between matches, so you have some time to try to recover and prepare for the next match.
That’s what I intend to do. Basically I don’t train on the days in between because I try to give myself as much time as possible to get my leg to an “ideal” state to play at a high level. I’m worried. I can not say no. I have reason to worry.”
Djokovic will face a buoyant Grigor Dimitrov
Novak Djokovic has stressed that he does not want to be painted in a bad light by the media.
“Well, first of all, I have to say it was the situation that involved few individuals, so I’m not generalizing here. Most of the people, super majority of the people, is here or some other situations that I had in the past in some other tournaments, is always respectful,” Novak Djokovic stated.
“What I have a problem with is when somebody’s crossing the line – numerous times. From the very beginning, guys that were under the influence of alcohol, it was obvious, and I was grabbing my towel very close to them, particularly one guy, you heard his voice various times tonight, was insulting me and provoking me and saying things that were not respectful at all,” the Serb revealed.
