The Serbian champion has chosen an important sparring partner to best prepare for the Olympic tournament
After the final at Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic has already returned to training on clay-courts for the upcoming and highly anticipated Paris Olympics. The Serbian champion, as he has stated several times, has a big goal for this season. Obviously it is the conquest of that title that is still missing in his glorious career, in which he has won everything: the Olympic gold medal.
To achieve this important goal in a season that has so far been lacking in satisfaction, the 24-time Slam champion is training with great intensity in Montenegro. His sparring partner in these days of hard training is the thirty-year-old Swede Filip Bergevi, ATP No.568. The Swedish tennis player himself made it known, with a post in which he thanked the Serbian champion for the opportunity to train with him.
“Incredible days in Montenegro with the GOAT Novak Djokovic. Thanks for the invitation and good luck for the Olympics,” he wrote on Instagram.
But not only the Olympics. Djokovic has always shown that he cares a lot about the colors of the Serbian national team. The Serbian champion, despite not having a brilliant moment in his career, in which he is still without titles in 2024, will not give up helping his Serbia this time either. In fact, it has been reported in recent days that the 24-time Grand Slam champion will defend his country in the knockout phase of the 2024 Davis Cup against Greece, on September 14 and 15. The path of the former number one in the last edition of the Davis Cup was interrupted precisely against the Italian national team, which relied on its champion Jannik Sinner, to eliminate it in the semifinals.
Meanwhile, in an interview with SportKlub, Ivan Ljubicic, former tennis player and former historic coach of Roger Federer, tried to analyze the reasons that led to Djokovic’s defeat in the Wimbledon final against Carlitos Alcaraz.
“We are not far from a complete generational change. Boris Becker told me that now even Djokovic has accepted Alcaraz’s superiority, something he had never done with Federer and Nadal. I am sure that in Paris for the Olympics he will have the motivation but what will he do afterwards? Without Federer and Nadal everything is different now. I think that his is a psychological problem, he has not forgotten how to play. To fight Djokovic must have fire inside otherwise he is missing something and if he does not feel those stimuli he can end up in difficulty,” he explained.
Andy Roddick also analyzed the Wimbledon final in one of the latest episodes of his podcast, spending words of great admiration for Djokovic.
“It’s crazy that Novak managed to get to the final of this tournament. He had surgery, no athletic preparation, little tennis and no preparation matches. And yet he reached the final at Wimbledon. You have to just give Novak credit. All he did before Wimbledon was try to be healthy enough to play his first round match, then the next round and so on. People said he doesn’t move very well. Well, you have to train to be ready. It’s not his fault that he didn’t have the time. When you get to the highest level, those edges are exposed and they make the difference. That’s what happened in the final,” he said.
Now there is great curiosity to understand what goals the Serbian champion will achieve in Paris Olympics. It must be said that even if after Nole he manages to win the Olympic Gold – the only major title missing from his collection, as I said before – there is curiosity to understand what will happen next and if he will still find that fire inside to compete.
Mental strength is not a gift, it is something that you have to work very hard to develop.
Even though there is no physical contact in tennis, there’s still a lot of eye contact.
Novak Djokovic gives a masterclass on competition and focus pic.twitter.com/1NoXH1l92a
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