Tournament favorite Novak Djokovic has returned serve at Alex de Minaur and dismissed the title possibilities of his quarterfinal opponent.
Quiet achiever Andrey Rublev doesn’t look like on the Serb’s radar because the nine-time champion hunts one other -Australian Open title.
After crushing the final remaining dwelling hope de Minaur in brutal vogue to storm right into a quarterfinal in opposition to Rublev, Djokovic was requested about his accomplishments in opposition to the remaining Open survivors. Boasting the second-most grand slam titles for a male participant, Djokovic is the one man left within the match who has received a significant.
Thriving in his Open return, which comes after final 12 months’s shock deportation on visa grounds, Djokovic seems to have overcome the hamstring damage that appeared the most important hurdle to a tenth crown.
The 35-year-old talked up the possibilities of Greek third seed -Stefanos Tsitsipas, in addition to the brand new wave of Americans making a run at Melbourne Park, however Rublev didn’t get a point out.
“Being the only guy remaining in the tournament that has won a grand slam of course -flatters me, but I don’t think it’s going to make too big of a difference,” stated the 21-time grand slam winner.
“Maybe it will to some extent, I mean, for me, but maybe not for the other guys. Tsitsipas, for example, is probably the most experienced guy out of all of them., all the quarterfinalists. He’s someone that looks ready to go for the title, and the way he has been playing, he’s been coming closer and closer.”
When requested how he defeated de Minaur “so convincingly”, Djokovic stated: “Because I wanted to.”
“I cannot say I’m sorry that you haven’t watched the longer match to be honest. I really wanted to win straight sets,” he stated.
“Tennis is a very quick, very dynamic sport. Things can change in a matter of moment, matter of points. Kept my focus all the way through. Just played the best match of this year so far.”
But probably the most brutal swipe got here within the post-match press convention throughout which Djokovic was reminded about dde Minaur’s feedback about his deportation in 2022.
Twelve months in the past, De Minaur stated everybody was bored with the “circus” and that Djokovic had “taken a lot of spotlight away from us competitors”.
Djokovic didn’t miss the Australian when requested about him.
Look, Australians have gone by way of rather a lot. There’s no secret about that. They’ve had it very powerful. They’ve executed loads of work to guard themselves and their borders,” de Minaur stated.
“When you’re coming in, as well as every other tennis player, if you wanted to come to the country, you had to be double vaccinated. It was up to him, his choices, his judgment. Here we are.”
“I don’t have any relationship with him,” he stated.
“I respect him as a rival, a -colleague, as I respect everyone. I have no -problem contacting him, congratulating him, etc. But I don’t have any other -relationship. I don’t have any communication with him. He showed in 2022 what he thinks about me.”
The Australian world No.24 hailed the Monday night time model of -Djokovic as one of the best opponent he had ever confronted.
“Maybe I’m being very hard on myself right now, but it did seem like I played a pretty faultless Novak today,” he stated.
