By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday April 13, 2023
It is quite bizarre, really, especially when we consider how much success Novak Djokovic has had over the course of his illustrious career. And yet, the Serb’s struggles at Monte-Carlo, a place where he twice defeated Rafael Nadal en route to the title (in 2013 and 2015), continue.
After Thursday’s loss to Lorenzo Musetti, Djokovic drops to 7-7 in Monte-Carlo since 2016. He has not reached the semifinals since then, and has lost four times to players ranked outside of the Top 20.
We can look at it this way: last season Djokovic lost to No.46-ranked Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the third-round. He then proceeded to win 32 consecutive times against players ranked outside the Top 20 until today, when he fell to Musetti in a wild affair, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.
We should have heeded Djokovic when he said the following on Tuesday:
“Clay surface for me is the most challenging surface to adapt, you know, to get into the rhythm.
“Historically, I mean, throughout my career I needed one, two weeks of tournaments to really start to play the way I want to play. It's the case again this year, even though I trained for three weeks and I felt good playing practice points.”
On Thursdsay we were given a good example of what Djokovic was referring to. He wasn’t himself. He may not have been 100 percent, either. The World No.1 wore a compression sleeve on his right arm and at times served at velocity way below normal.
Is there an injury to deal with?
Whatever it was, Djokovic did not want to talk about it after his loss. He came to his press conference and answered questions quickly.
It went like this:
Q. Can you say a bit more about your…
NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I cannot say nothing. I'm okay. I'm fine. Congrats to him. We move on.
Clearly Djokovic is feeling healthy enough to play next week: “Next week I play Banja Luka," he concluded.