Novak Djokovic: "I really don't understand why there's no heat rule here"

Novak Djokovic defeated French player Valentin Royer 3-1 in sets after a match that lasted nearly four hours.&ldquo;A little long? I&rsquo;m not sure I agree with that. When you play three and a half hours on clay, that&rsquo;s long and very exhausting, at least in my opinion. I really exhausted myself physically today &mdash; very challenging conditions, it was extremely hot... It was my fault I didn&rsquo;t finish it 3-0 because I had many chances, but I was too passive on match point and he took advantage of those opportunities. That&rsquo;s when he gained momentum, but in the fourth set I managed to regroup. This was a much tougher match than the score suggests. He was fired up from the very first point and tactically very clear in what he wanted to do. He&rsquo;s a great fighter. A good win for me. It&rsquo;s not ideal that I spent so much time on court, but... yeah,&rdquo; Djokovic said after reaching the third round of the French Open.Speaking about his overhead smash &mdash; a shot that has often been criticized throughout his career &mdash; Djokovic joked:&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if coaches think I&rsquo;ve improved... Yeah, my fans call it the &lsquo;Djokosmash,&rsquo; and that&rsquo;s not exactly great! (laughs). It&rsquo;s not a shot I&rsquo;ve had confidence in over the last 10&ndash;15 years of my career, maybe before that I did. I don&rsquo;t know... I&rsquo;m not a big fan of overheads, let&rsquo;s put it that way. If you watch my matches, you&rsquo;ll understand why.&rdquo;His next opponent will be either Jo&atilde;o Fonseca or Dino Prižmić.&ldquo;I watched a little bit, Fonseca is up a break in the fifth now... He looks fresher and better. Fonseca has been getting a lot of praise over the last few years. His potential and quality are obvious, there&rsquo;s no doubt about that. He has huge Brazilian support and I think he&rsquo;s a player capable of big things. He played a night match with Sinner in Indian Wells. He beat Rublev 3-0 at the Australian Open, so he can definitely step up when it matters most. Prižmić beat me a few weeks ago. I feel and play better now than I did in Rome, but he&rsquo;s a hard worker. I played him in the first round of the Australian Open a few years ago and it was a tough four-setter, so both matches against him have been difficult. I thought he would break through earlier, but I know he had injury problems. He lacks consistency, but the quality is there. Whoever I play, it&rsquo;ll be another long, demanding match.&rdquo;Djokovic also criticized the lack of an extreme heat protocol at French Open.&ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t understand why there&rsquo;s no heat rule here. Or is there one? Oh, it&rsquo;s some additional index, formula, calculation... That is a discussion, but then if you close one roof while everyone else has to play outside, that&rsquo;s not fair either. I don&rsquo;t agree with that either, even though it would help me a lot. In Australia that happened to me a few times, but in recent years we&rsquo;ve seen delays of one, two, three hours until the temperature drops below the limit. At Grand Slams there really shouldn&rsquo;t be such problems &mdash; we have many courts, we have lights, matches can be moved and played on stadium courts when necessary. At tournaments without those conditions it&rsquo;s different, but here... why not? We have some tournaments like Umag where matches start around 5 p.m. and are played at night. Is it ideal to play after midnight? No. But if the heat is extreme, maybe they should think about it.&rdquo;Djokovic also spoke warmly about 14-year-old Greek talent Rafael Pagonis, who attended the match.&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t spoken Greek yet, I still need to work on my Greek. Greek is really challenging! He&rsquo;s a very good kid, he has good people around him, his family, and I like that. Then he also has huge talent, he&rsquo;s excellent for someone who is 14 years old, enormous potential. We trained together a few times and practiced next to each other many times before Roland Garros. I saw how he trains and how dedicated he is, but he&rsquo;s still just a boy. I told his father that I&rsquo;m here, I&rsquo;m in Athens and always available for any advice. His father joked that I could join his team once I retire, and I told him he&rsquo;ll have to wait a long time. He&rsquo;ll retire before me! Jokes aside, he&rsquo;s a good kid and I&rsquo;m following his career.&rdquo;

Novak Djokovic: "I really don't understand why there's no heat rule here"

0 Komentari