Novak played Tabilio post concussion and that explains a lot of his behavior. The symptoms he described after being hit by a heavy metal bottle falling from 6 ft above him and right on his head are consistent with a concussion.
Sabalenka's grunt is not "intuitive". It extends to the opponent's stroke on almost every shot. It also increases in length and volume, strategically, on important points.
Think your analysis of Djokovich's match was spot on! I don't know how Mayar Sherif doesn’t get called for hindrance with her grunt. It would drive me crazy being across the net from her!
Great talk Coach! I had one of the worst days in singles today and I beat myself 6-3 6-0. I am 52 years old and I felt it today. The good news is that I am not able to play worse than I did today! I will watch Novak play at a 100 years old because I just love watching him play, the same goes for Nadal.
I’m not the biggest Novak fan, but I’m convinced he has a concussion. I’ve seen him play a hundred times, and I’ve seen him play badly like in 2017 when he had elbow and off-court issues. He NEVER looked this disinterested and sluggish. I also think that Goran and/or Marian Vajda would’ve recognized something was wrong and stepped in.
My first college match was against a kid who after every shot would say AIYAAAAAAAH long enough for the ball to hit my strings. It was so annoying I actually started laughing mid point
very good observation and insightful Nick, congratulations. Indeed I have checked: In Montecarlo Novak bounced the ball 8-11 times before the serve, same as last match against Federer in AO years ago, then in Rome it is 6-7 times consistently since first round. So it is not related to second match, but he might not be really wanting to be there or just want to practice
@@francescojsb ridiculous - can you give me two examples? (Exact score at that moment-I will check but I don’t believe it - if ever it happened which I doubt a lot it was not a pattern in average)
@@francescojsb you should not count the 5 bounces with the racket, then the rest is more the average pattern to get insights, not the exceptions. I watch all his matches and that is not the trend or any kind of regular pattern
@@francescojsb well I watch all his matches and I count somehow, this isn't correct. The average is the most important, not exceptions which I don't even see. I wouldn't take you as my accountant 😉
Djokovic's first match in Rome impressive. The symptoms he spoke about when asked by the Journalist sounds like concussion which would explain why he was so unbalanced and no focus, Hope he is ok. It was a Heavy bottle and if you look at it falling he was hit with the lid part which is probably worse than the bottom of the bottle. Very unfortunate thing to happen to him. Hope he is given the all clear and play his best for RG.
The Serbian Open was moved to Bucharest, Romania. The license for the tournament is owned by Ion Tririac (who used to own Madrid Master also). The license for the 250 was rented out but Tiriac got it back this year after selling the Madrid license last year.
Alcaraz will 100% play in RG. He has inflammation in his forearm and he as already taken about 25 days off. Anti-Inflammatory medicine and he 'll be back for RG. However, Sinner appears to have a hip injury which is something completely different from what Alcaraz has and needs more time to rest.
@@vivig270 well I remember growing up listening to Seles grunting. Similar problem. WTA needs to enforce hinderance for this. Cannot grunt when it's bouncing on other player side. That's too much, easy to fix. These ladies will stop instantly once the rule is enforced.
I find so ridiculous when some people underestimate Rafa and Novak as If they not so far the best of all time. Those two plus Roger have together more grand slams winning trophies than many Grand Slams players winners together. Of course, not all of them together, but a bunch, bunch, bunch of them together. I really think is massively disrespectful to say that "anyone can beat them now". "They don't scare no one". They might not be at their peek right now, but as Nikola said, they can have a click and beat anyone. I seriously think that each of them will will at least one more major trophy (Grand Slam). Thanks. Always Tennis🎾❤
MMTR rules! You always boil it down to the most basic truth... we should respect all the players always, even when they struggle or behave badly, because tennis is the hardest sport on the planet.
Don’t you think Nole just underestimated his opponent? It looked to me as if he was surprised by the tempo and striking from Tabilo. When he got up to speed it was too late. Though, never count him out, he can surprise at Roland Garros!
hey Nick. i noticed that Sinner barely looks down at his racquet face on the forehand. i know you said not keeping your eyes on the ball all the way isn't a technical deficiency but wanted to see if you had any input on Sinner specifically.
Most players don’t, since you can’t see the contact it is irrelevant ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-64y-Fa3Q8vQ.htmlsi=kio7Cde-FuWoaMZh
I wish WTA will do something about those loud grunts and yellings by some players. Im sure that it has negative effect to the opponents and this is unfair to them.
Sabalenka and Azarenka (the Shriekalenka sisters) annoyed me. Sherif outdid them. Oh let’s not forget the grunt (whose?) that sounded like an “out” line call! 😄
I reckon Djokovic still has one or slam wins left in him. What's happening is the same thing that happened to Federer in 2010. He's already beaten all the records, so he doesn't have the same drive he had before
Nikola, you are wrong that Novak's results are consequence of his age. He is still in top shape. This loss in Rome is only consequence of bottle incident. He was bleeding from his nose after the hit. That is very scary. He wanted to have good tournament in Rome, and wanted to continue playing. He tried against Tabilo, but as soon as he saw something is off his priority was changed just to rush the match and get off the court. He wanted to examine injury further with scan. He trained hard here in Belgrade, and is ready to conquer RG. The most important slam this year for Novak because of Olympics on the clay. In Vienna he tanked a match against Sonego because he wanted to humiliate the tournament. He was not received there in proper way. This match was the same, from different reason. Novak did not want to play that match, one come on with a racket is not a sign he was there, it was just reflex reaction after good point.
very interesting insights. I do like a lot Nikola and his work, but he has this tendency of making assumptions based on uncertain elements and present them a bit as a certitude. I really think he needs to adapt this style of communication, just my view, unless this is on purpose...
@@watersmoke1114 I disagree. I really like how Nikola clearly expresses his opinion and I agree with him most of times. I agree with most of what he said now too, just not how he sees Djokovic and his match against Tabilo. Insignificant match, priority is to check the head injury, period. Tabilo is decent player, but it is stupid saying about his game when his opponent did not play the match. We observers should at least be able to see that, if someone is playing it for real or not.
About the grunting; the loudest players (we all know who they are) make watching them very irritating. I don’t like to mute the sound because I want to hear the racquet hit the ball and the sounds of their feet. That’s tennis. But the outright screaming is simply out of control. I blame Nick Bollettieri in the late 80’s for deliberately encouraging his players to make noise as a way to distract their opponents. It’s one thing to make noise as you exhale, it’s quite a different thing to make so much noise that everyone in the stadium can hear it. I remember a top college player I knew grunting in the early 70’s and everyone hated it, but the sound he made is nothing compared to what is routinely heard today in pro tournaments. It is a hindrance but the problem is that rule is of course subjective. A decibel meter at the net would be useful for the umpire!
Ruud and Rublev are also out. Could be Zverev's moment. On the grunts: there are excessive loud/long but still real grunts. Prime example: Rafa. And I'm afraid Rafa did set something of a standard here. Players, especially Spanish players, have been integrating that kind of noise into their game. Martinez comes to mind. I adore Rafa as a player and off court personality but his on court personality is egotist. Then there are late grunts. Bautista Agut has been a pioneer of those but now they are everywhere. Listen to Atmane against Dimitrov: the variety of grunts showed more creativity than his tennis. Then there's the occasional long grunt, when going for a winner, almost saying "there's no coming back from this". Shelton has done it many times, but many others have. Never happened in the years prior to this next gen era. ATP/WTA/ITF has let it come too far already. It goes back to Seles in WTA and Rafa in ATP. They didn't act because those players were too great to tackle. Now it's all over the place.
I hate the grunts when going for a winner and they let out a huge grunt. I’ve played and if somebody does that it pisses me off because it throws me off.
First of all, there are no Rafa “ haters” like Djoko have. Neither do Federer, or Murray, or Dimitrov and many other classy players who were never involved in controversy like the antivax movement, or hitting an official with a ball, or screaming at a poor ballboy, or… And definitely not a concussion cause by a little bottle falling from few feet on his head… Come on guys.
You talking about zeverev right? I thought he started grunting at a weird time and it felt more like he was trying to scream to distract the other player
Nikola… could it be that Djokovic woke up one morning and asked himself if he wants to keep making all the effort to stay #1? Sampras wrote about this in “A Champions Mind”, he just didn’t want to do all the things it takes to stay on top. Djokovic has a family that could use his presence. We now have Sinner & Alcaraz coming… all that traveling, all that training, all that focus gets to be too much. There is life after tennis you know 😊
Though the results may not show it, Novak’s age started to show last year. The thing is, 80-90% Novak is still better than 99% of players on tour. But once he starts dipping to 60-70% like he has recently, that’s when he starts appearing human.
I have a feeling that he is not putting in enough practice hours these days. Is it due to the lack of motivation? Probably As for the booing in Rome, I am completely speechless. 🤐 I have witnessed negativity directed toward Novak in various places in Europe with no reason at all. Even today, come on guys Novak might have had a bad day on the court, it could have been toothache, headache, family issue and you just wait for that to happen and start booing. Such a disrespectful treatment of the GOAT and one of the best athletes in the history of sport. The only way to explain it is envy - a resentful sentiment to a guy who is not from "our part of the world" but an outsider from a small country like Serbia. Novak has given his heart and soul to tennis, the well-being of other players, helped Italy on numerous occasions (hospital in Bergamo), speaks perfect Italian, praises Italian culture and has many friends there, and the first thing that comes to your mind when he underperforms is booing. Simply unbelievable😮😮😮. But to tell you the truth, I have seen even worse things happening to Novak😥. May the force be with him. IDEMO NOLE!!!
I don't know, as an Italian I know for a fact Novak here has many many fans. Also, Italy and Serbia aren't even that distant from one another, so we can't really talk of different parts of the world. I'd say people in Rome are quite expressive and exigent when it comes to sport. Also in football they booed their own teams many times. They thought Novak tanked (he played very strangely) and they were quite disappointed. To be honest, I can see their reasons, but I wouldn't do it myself, it seems too harsh of a treatment for a legend of the sport.
@@liebebile6515no doubts Novak has fans in Italy but the booing and mistreatment has come consistently from places like Rome, Paris, London etc. I have been there and seen it in person. No other player has suffered that much in this regard, let alone a legend like Nole. So definitely a pattrern of negativity nobody speaks about much.
@@milanvincic9668 he didn't deserve the hate he got during his career. He is however a divisive character, and people like to create the bad guy vs good guy narrative. And also slavic people, having a lot of similar cultural traits to russians, are more prone to being considered "unfriendly". It's not about being from other parts of the world IMHO, it's more about being somewhat correlated to Soviet Union and communism. In fact people from India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Thailand etc etc don't get nearly as much hostility as slavic and russian people get.
@@liebebile6515well said. People need to show respect in presence of greatness no matter what. Other than occasional on-court tantrums, Novak is a true ambassador of tennis and a very generous person. A guy who speaks his mind and does everything to reconcile the fragile fabric of the Balkan societies. Remember how they treated him in Australia? Tennis audience should be aware of that and look far above the horizon of stereoypes. They have had two decades to realize that but nothing has changed. I think Novak suffers in silence because of that.
@@milanvincic9668 you know what. I agree with you about Novak and the unfair treatment he received by media and fans. However, I want to reiterate the fact that Italians love to criticize, not only Novak or divisive characters. I was in the stadium in Rome for the final Nadal - Federer in 2013, and I guarantee you that after the first set (6-1 in favor of Nadal) everyone was booing Federer for, supposedly, lack of effort. I was very surprised, considering the status of absolute legend Roger had at the time.
Blaming a water bottle is certainly a new excuse for another loss. Maybe it can be applied retro-actively to the loss he suffered to the relatively unknown #123 Nardi at IW. At least this loss was to a player who has been on fire this season.
Its a bit quick to jump on Novak for 'poor' performances because one could do the exact same to Alcaraz and if Sinner pulls out from RG and then suddenly drops on grass where he should do well the same again. Novak had the bottle incident(accident or?) the day before and he was hospitalised. Its possible he was suffering a bit and was trying to do his best keeping on a 'normal face'. Guaranteed though Novak will win RG unless Tsitsipas or Ruud can do something.
Out of context but it’s clear that even as a Rafa fan, 38 year old Federer would easily beat today’s Djokovic and Nadal. Federer should’ve won 2019 Wimbledon but probably he has the best longevity in tennis unless Djokovic turns around in next majors or Rafa magically comes back like his 2022 pre-Wimbledon QF form.
Dreamer, Djoko nearly played no matches this year, after AO he didn´t play much. Nadal is done, his body is not anymore this competetive, Djoko will show more at Roland Garros, you can be sure about that
Why being mad though? If Djokovic and Nadal continue playing like this, 2019’s Federer would beat them easily. It’s the truth. And it’s not my fault that Djokovic played few matches this year xd Also last year he didn’t even play much but he organised his schedule well and got a winning record like his 2011 and 2015 performances.
All that matters really is that as tennis fans, we are DAMN lucky that we got to witness the big three throughout their careers. And not just them, but Serena too. We’ve seen the four greatest to ever do it in our lifetimes, and will likely never see the likes of them again. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and that time is now 😢
Excellent show! Your assessment of Novak's weird play yesterday ..spot on! I wish he recovers quickly and we enjoy watching him play for at least on more year. A special thank you for a dramatic demonstration of real and fake grunt ...priceless 🤣
The noise LENGTH is getting excessive and must be penalized. It's such an easy binary outcome. If noisy while ball on other side of the net, yellow hanky thrown. I tried to watch a clay court challenger recently and had to turn it off due to an excess of player sound,
Coach, to me without feeling the established presence of a proven opponent for Novak, it almost seems like he loses interest in winning. As if he needs to feel the pressure that fuels the challenge itself. Without it, it seems subconsciously not interesting to him.
Back in the days Michał Przysiężny aka Polish Fed was invited to practise with Roger in Dubai. It was extremely windy. They hit some balls and took a short break. Przysiężny looked at Roger with bafflement and asked the Swiss: "How on earth can you play in such extreme conditions?" The Swiss Maestro replied: It is in this kind of conditions when I can prove how exceIlent I am. That's it. That's the story
For a sport that requires amazing so much, a heavy water bottle strike to the head two days before competition would probably fuck up many of the top players.
He is playing with fire. Again. We saw this in 2021 when he almost won all 4 Slams (lost to Med in U.S. Open Finals). But even during that great stretch he was often dropping first sets. And now, it is even worse as he is older and seemingly lacks motivation. The great players cannot be counted out but he needs to raise his level. But if he remains at this level, he is not winning another tournament again.
Let's face it guys! Federer and Nadal were so popular and liked that their true behavour on and off the court were over looked and forgiven by a lot of people! It did not matter what they did they were so loved it was ok right or wrong! Now throw in novak in the picture who comes in and start beating everybody including Roger Nadal and you have a bunch of people hateing on you because you are so darn good at what you do! The more you win the more hate is piled upon you because you are taking away the attention from them to you! because they are so popular and loved and you are not! Being popular and loved does not make you a true champion! Being the best in the world at what you do abd how you carry yourself now that's a true champion! Nole the true GOAT!
I can understand why you think it was because he was beating Nadal and Federer that made people dislike him but the fact is Djokovic was not very likable in the early days. He would beat his chest in triumph; scream at the top of his lungs; rip his shirt; break racquets; turn to his box every point; shout at his box. It just wasn't nice to watch. He's much more civilised these days but his fans aren't. The nastiest comments I see are always from his fan base. I don't want him to stop playing because his tennis is amazing. His serve; his clean shots; his overall talent and tennis IQ is undeniable.
