“Don’t be fooled. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of thing.”said John McEnroe when Novak Djokovic, injured in his left thigh, took a medical timeout against Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, before displaying an impressive level of play and winning in four sets.
In a column published by the Winamax program “Sans Filet”, journalist Benoît Maylin gave his opinion, in his own way, on the stratagems used by the man with 24 Grand Slam titles.
“No, but seriously Djokovic, what a deceit, how vicious, confusing your matches, taking breaks when he is down two sets zero. Oh the sneaky one! And his injuries in Australia: that’s the big deal! There, he is always at death’s door, torn everywhere. And strangely enough, he still wins. Thiem, Fritz, and so on and the best. There, Alcaraz… They were all fooled. Because yes, Djokovic plays on that, on his physical failings. And yet, in tennis where the mind is preponderant, we learn to hide our suffering, and above all never show our weaknesses. Djokovic does the opposite, he hides nothing, and it’s Machiavellianly intelligent. The adversary is automatically magnetized, he thinks. ‘The beast is injured, will he give up?’ The opponent focuses on Novak instead of focusing on his game. He fell into the trap, Djokovic got into his head. Does that make him a cheater? No. And even if some find it unfair, Djokovic doesn’t care, it’s part of the game. It’s up to others not to have their brains eaten away, right Carlos? »
-Published on Thursday January 23, 2025 at 08:26
Belgium
