just a few months ago, Novak Djokovic he was under arrest in a Melbourne hotel intended for refugees seeking political asylum. The Serb was isolated, separated from his work team. Among those who were in the oceanic country was Goran Ivanisevic, which saw how in a matter of days the Nole season would take a 180 degree turn. Many weeks later, the tears of those moments have become the happiness of today, with a Djokovic capable of conquering his 21st Grand Slam on the grass of Wimbledon 2022 and to meet again with his best version after months in which many doubted him. From all that and more, from an up-close perspective, Goran spoke to the media in a Press conference very emotional.
Djokovic’s mental resilience to succeed again after the first months of the year
“It’s a very emotional Grand Slam. If you let me say it, it’s been a shitty year, a very difficult year, especially for him, but also for those of us who are close to him. Being in Australia and everything that happened after. .. he needed a lot of time to move forward and find his rhythm. Then the loss against Rafa, as much as you can lose to him almost always in Paris. For me Nole was a favorite here, before the tournament he had already played a very high level, but you still come under pressure to win the tournament, which is not easy. Add all this madness with the points… but hey, a Grand Slam is a Grand Slam. He already has 21. He deserves it, he deserves it. really deserve it.”
Preparation for the final against Kyrgios
“You can’t prepare a match against Nick Kyrgios. Nick is a genius, a tennis genius. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do on the next point. We focused on what Novak could do, what he had to do, the things I had to be careful with. For me Nick is the best server today, hands down. He can play incredible tennis and he’s very unpredictable, so it’s impossible to create a tactic. There are no tactics. In 15 minutes, the best The world’s receiver was unable to touch his serve. And then he broke his serve. For me the key was that Djokovic focused on what Novak had to do, and he was adamant about doing those little things: being prepared to return the big serves, for those second serves where you risk a lot.
However, Novak also knew that when Nick starts to talk, that’s when he’s vulnerable. And that happened. It happened in the third set, when Nick was 40-0, suddenly Novak breaks him and Nick starts talking to the bench about him. That’s Nick. Against him you have to take any chance you get, as you’re not going to get many.”
Responsibility added since Vajda’s departure
“The team has been going for three years… with Marian, he had half the tournaments and I had the other half. I was here with Nole last year, also in Australia. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with Marian. It was easier, because each one had 50% of the stress, now I have 100%. Look at me, I’m all pale (laughs). That’s the change, but it’s my job. When you train the one who for me is the best player you have to be able to handle that stress. Luckily, there are nice moments, like when he wins Grand Slams.”
Experience with him after what happened in Australia
“What happened to him was quite important. Many would expect that in two weeks he would forget about Australia and be back training. It doesn’t happen like this. He needed a lot of time. First Monte Carlo, Belgrade, that’s where he starts playing better. Then comes Madrid, Rome. Even in Paris he already played well, but Rafa was better than him that night. A lot of people would never recover from that. They would never play tennis again. It was a huge shock. It was for me, and That I was there, free. Imagine for him. It’s amazing how he has recovered and how he has come back from all that. He is heroic, it was not easy to digest and play tennis again. You might think: ‘why do I play tennis?’ tennis?’ Three or four weeks before Roland Garros you couldn’t make a tournament plan because you didn’t know if I could play there. Now you can enter, now you can’t. We couldn’t. We trained, but sometimes we didn’t know why. It wasn’t easy. Now everything It’s a bit better. You know where you can go and where you can’t, it’s easier”.
Did you doubt that Djokovic would play like this again?
“No, no. You don’t doubt people like him. He’s a great champion. He needed the exact time to recover from everything and digest what happened to him, but I never doubted him. We were there. The whole team was with him. He just needed find peace. It wasn’t easy to plan anything because in a matter of weeks the rules changed. It hasn’t been an easy road, but this is the result. Today, this is the result. This trophy, this joy on Center Court. It’s precious . It was worth it”.
The US Open and a complicated panorama
“There is a movie called ‘Long, Hot Summer.’ There’s a lot of crazy things happening in the world, every day something changes, so we’ll see what happens. There’s still a month and a half, anything can happen. If it goes to the States, it will be beautiful. If not, what can we do? There are other tournaments. We’ll see.”
