Forgive us in case you’ve heard this earlier than, however “a report from Serbia” has emerged involving Novak Djokovic.
The world No. 1 in fact suffered an sudden semi-final loss to Jannik Sinner on the Australian Open, the primary time he had ever misplaced in a semi or remaining at Melbourne Park.
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Just as Djokovic supposedly carried a 3cm tear in his hamstring by means of his Australian Open triumph in 2023, this yr he had a wrist harm after which a thriller sickness throughout the yr’s opening grand slam.
During the Serbian’s third-round win over Tomas Etcheverry, a member of the group yelled out “get vaccinated, mate” on match level earlier than Djokovic was requested about his sickness within the press convention that evening.
“It’s kind of a regular viral infection that I’ve been through,” he stated. “Now it’s in its last stages. I still have some secrete coming out. That’s all it is.”
Djokovic then thrashed Adrian Mannarino and battled previous Taylor Fritz to achieve the ultimate 4, the place he was outplayed by an impressed Sinner, who would go on to win his first grand slam title.
Djokovic was unable to carve out a single break level alternative on the Italian’s serve, finally succumbing 6-1 6-2 6-7 6-3, in a match the place the highest seed didn’t exhibit any of his normal hearth or frustration in the direction of his field or the group.
Now, a report from Serbia attributed to a journalist referred to as Luka Nikolic, which was posted on social media on a Djokovic fan website, claims to have the solutions to his poor play.
“Novak got a fever the night before the semi-final,” the report states. “Something similar to what (Alexander) Zverev had.
“He was sick for three weeks and then he had a relapse. That’s why he played so badly in the first two sets, you could see he was so weak and couldn’t do it.
“He couldn’t play well in those conditions. He didn’t want to go to the doctor so the journalists wouldn’t bother him and make a fuss.”
We have been capable of finding a journalist referred to as Luka Nikolic, which is a reasonably frequent identify in Serbia and Slovenia, with an MMA fighter, a tennis participant and a basketball participant all discovered on-line with the identical identify.
The Nikolic credited with this report is alleged to be a technical editor of Meridian Sport Global and beforehand labored with B92 and Sputnik News.
In phrases of the Zverev reference, the German complained a few lack of power and a fever that impacted him after his quarter-final win over Carlos Alcaraz and through his five-set semi-final loss to Daniil Medvedev.
Plenty of followers have responded to the report on X, previously Twitter, which was posted by an account referred to as @DjokovicFan, which posts in English and virtually completely in regards to the 24-time grand slam champion to its 7,800 followers.
“That’ll do it. We knew Novak wasn’t right from the first ball of that match. I’m not too distraught over the loss. We all know that he will be back and better than ever,” was one reply.
“Now it is more clear the situation, it was strange to see Novak dominated with many errors and never a break point,” wrote one other.
“That (illness) was obvious,” added a 3rd. “No emotional push from him and his entire team showed their low expectations.”
There have been additionally loads of feedback that didn’t need to make excuses and most popular to credit score Sinner for his victory.
One additionally posed this query.
“Should Sinner return the trophy to (tournament director Craig) Tiley or FedEx it to Serbia?”
We can be eager to see some verification of that authentic report, together with from Djokovic himself.
Source: www.news.com.au
