In Australia Novak Djokovic returned like a king. The premise of the last Australian Open for the Serbian tennis player was unprecedented and not trivial: setting foot in Australia a year after being exiled from the country for his decision not to get vaccinated, in a matter that ended after a week and only by court decision.
Meanwhile, his arrival in Melbourne had another complication: a physical problem, which turned out to be a 3cm tear in the tendon in his left knee. None of this stopped Djokovic from winning his 10th title at Melbourne Park, but the road was not easy.
“Obviously there was a lot of attention on me, considering what happened 12 months ago, and I could feel it. As much as I wanted to isolate myself and get away from it, I had to deal with it. And getting injured a few days before the first game was something I didn’t needed at the time, but at the same time it made the trip even more special.
So in the end, when I celebrated and let my emotions out, I felt great and proud and happy. Then I hugged my mother and my brother and gave up,” he said in an interview with The National News. On the criticism over the injury, he added: “I’ve had enough.
I really don’t have the time, energy or inclination to stand up to anybody’s judgment or prove anything to anybody.”
Nole won his 22nd Slam title in Australia
Arriving in Dubai where he knows his potential career, Novak Djokovic confided in the media The National News for quite a long time.
He spoke in particular about his run at the Grand Slams with his “biggest rival”, Rafael Nadal. The two legends have, since the Australian Open and the last coronation of the Serb, 22 titles each. “If I finish tied with Nadal? I would be satisfied.
I would like to have more Grand Slams than my biggest rival, but listen, when I have to stop and go back to my career story, even if I stopped here and he still won 10 Grand Slams, I should still be overall satisfied. Maybe there will be a small part of me that will regret not having had more than him, but in the end, how many titles are enough? You have to have the competitive spirit, you have to have that ferocity, the mental approach of a wolf in a way, to be hungry and hungry, because that’s what drives you, at least in my case.
But at the same time, there is also time to put things in perspective and to say to yourself, ok ‘wow, we have done a lot of things’, you have to be proud, you have to be grateful for all these things, to be humble“, explained Nole.
