“Everybody makes mistakes, it was in the heat of the battle,” Djokovic justifies his verbal scuffle with chair umpire

“Everybody makes mistakes, it was in the heat of the battle,” Djokovic justifies his verbal scuffle with chair umpire
Novak Djokovic

Despite being on the news for all the wrong reasons through the year, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic gets himself into another fiasco with the chair umpire during the semifinals match at Italian Open 2020.  The Serb was in a face-off against Casper Ruud, where he engaged in a war of words despite aceing the match in straight sets. Fortunately, he saved himself and got away from trouble as the intensity was far from high.

Also, he later presented a justification realising the issue to be an upshot of the heat of the moment.

“I deserved a warning, I didn’t say nice things in my language. I got into disputed with chair umpire – as I understand, I was right 3/3, but it doesn’t matter, everybody makes mistakes, it was in the heat of the battle,” he stated.

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2020: A Roller Coaster year for Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic

Top seed Novak Djokovic has been having quite a year filled up with controversies. The first on the list of woes comes The Adria Tour which was organised by the Serb during the pandemic. The tour led to a spike in COVID-19 cases in Serbia, with Djokovic, his wife and his coach too getting infected. To aggravate the situation, he made questionable remarks on vaccination, which was largely misinterpreted despite his clarifications on the issue.

Secondly, the Serb along with Vasek Pospisil has initiated the formation of a new Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) to co-exist alongside the ATP Player Council Board which has embarked opposition from throughout the tennis world.

The US Open 2020 bought along a positive ardor for the Top seed, who was headed to bag his 18th Grand Slam. He was at his best performance, confidently aceing through all the victories. But the ‘bad luck’ struck him when he got himself disqualified in the round of 16 for accidentally hitting a ball on the line judge’s throat.

Losing through the opener 6-5 against Pablo Carreno Busta, he expressed his frustration by smacking the ball towards the backboard. But, to his dismay, it dashed on to hit the lineswoman. With all his apologies in vain, he was almost immediately defaulted from the tournament.

Post his default break, he got back into the sport entering the Rome Masters in full confidence. He aims for his 36th Masters 1000 title at today’s finals against Diego Schwartzman and will further head to Paris for Roland Garros.

Also read: “I think that we have two guys who can beat Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros” says coach Patrick Mouratoglou