By Chris Oddo | Tuesday June 19, 2018
In his first public appearance since Roland Garros, Novak Djokovic opened up about his loss to Marco Cecchinato and looked ahead to his near-term future on grass.
Photo: Matthew Stockman/Gett
Novak Djokovic addressed media on Tuesday in London for the first time since his difficult quarterfinal loss—and brusque press conference—at Roland Garros two weeks ago.
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The Serb explained that most of his disappointment after that match stemmed from the fact had he expected to push further in the draw. The loss to the unheralded Cecchinato stung a great deal because Djokovic had made so much progress leading up the the second week in Paris and felt he had a golden opportunity to reach deeper into the draw there.
In his much-publicized press conference after that quarterfinal loss in Paris, a terse Djokovic was at a loss for words. He shocked many when he said he didn't know if he'd play on grass, causing speculation that he may be injured again. As it turns out, he simply didn't want to talk or think about the future, and that's understandable. Clearly the Serb needed time to process a loss that shook him, and that's likely a good sign in the big picture.
“Considering the circumstances that I was in in the last 12 months, you know, that kind of match loss hurt a lot,” Djokovic said. “I thought I had a really fair chance to get at least a step further, and I was starting to play really well. I thought in Rome I had a fairly good tournament.”
After taking five days on a nature excursion with his wife Jelena, Djokovic is now able to see the loss for what it is—a chance to grow. He said the couple took about five days "far from a tennis court" and in total he took a total of about eight days of relaxation, which included some practice on hard courts in Monte-Carlo, before coming to London and conducting four days of practice on the grass.
Before he could do that he needed to put his loss at Roland Garros full behind him, and it appears he has done it.
“Got to quarters,” he said of the four-set loss to the unseeded Italian, in which he squandered three set points that would have forced a decider. “Played well. And then just underperformed in quarters, but that's sport. You know, you have to deal with it. It was a big stage. It was a big occasion. Credit to my opponent for winning. But I had to just take some time off the court, you know, and just recharge the batteries physically and mentally and just get back on it.”
Djokovic talked about another difficult process he has endured in 2018: the changing of the specs of his racquet and the mechanics of his serve in order to compensate for his right elbow injury.
“I changed the racquet,” Djokovic told reporters in London. “I mean, the model of the racquet is the same, and what I wanted to say is I have modified certain dimensions of the racquet and things that I felt with my team that is the right thing to do, considering the problems that I had with the elbow.”
Djokovic played with an abbreviated serve motion in Australia, then after his surgery, he has again adjusted the motion with some help from coach Marian Vajda.
“This very problem with an injury of the elbow has forced me to also compensate a little bit my technique for the serve, the movement and everything,” he said. “So I went from quite a familiar style of serving up to Wimbledon last year. Then I took a break obviously, and then I started reinventing the serve and game and racquet. And then I kind of had a completely new motion in Australia and then another one in Miami.
“I feel like it helps, the racquet and the work obviously that I have done. Today I served pretty well.”
The serve was firing on Tuesday—Djokovic won 24 of 26 first-serve points and dropped only six points on serve all day against Aussie John Millman.
“It was a good match,” Djokovic, who will face Grigor Dimitrov for a spot in the quarterfinals on Thursday, said. “The focus was there, right intensity every shot. Every shot was working really beautifully. … Yeah, I'm very pleased to be able to start off the grass court season this way at the tournament where I haven't participated for eight years, and hopefully I can keep on progressing day after day.”