“A real problem” Journalist Ben Rothenberg accuses a ‘reckless’ Novak Djokovic of throwing his racket and almost hitting a ball kid during the Serbia Open finals
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Novak Djokovic and Ben Rothenberg
World No. 8 and the 2nd seeded Andrey Rublev came out victorious against World No. 1 and the top seed Novak Djokovic in the finals of the 2022 Serbia Open to claim his third title of the season. Rublev won the finals 6-2, 6-7(7), 6-0 serving a visibly tired Novak his 13th bagel of the career and first since 2019.
Djokovic was playing in his third tournament of the season and first final of the season but it wasn’t his moment to be crowned the champion in front of his home crowd at the Novak Tennis Center in Belgrade. Nevertheless, it was a good week for the 20-time Grand Slam champion who looks to regain his best form for the remainder of the season.
In a video that has been making rounds on the internet, during a short point on Rublev’s service, the Russian hit the ball wide to the left of Novak and then hit it far right to make Djokovic stretch his maximum in an attempt to get to the ball. However, the pace had carried it away and Novak lost the point as his racket was next seen narrowly missing the ball kid near the net.
In the video, however, one cannot make a final call whether the racket was thrown or slipped out of Novak’s hands. The kid returned the racket to Novak who said a few words to him which were unclear further from the video. With the video getting viral, journalist Ben Rothenberg shared the video and took a dig at Novak accusing him of throwing his racket which he later deleted.
“On Djokovic, good news is he got lots of time on court this week after depriving himself of it, playing for over 10 hours in his four matches. Bad news is that he—like others on ATP—still has a real problem with launching reckless projectiles in anger that hit/nearly hit folks,” tweeted Ben.
Twitter bashes Ben Rothenberg for bias against Novak Djokovic
Rothenberg has often tweeted against Djokovic over the years for issues that are not fully black and white. With what has certainly looked like a bias against the Serbian, Netizens and especially the ‘NoleFam’, fans of Djokovic, put the journalist in his place and call him out for propaganda against one of the greatest of the sport. Rothenberg has often been criticised by players for his uncalled involvement in matters lesser-known to him but he has also been the one to report the domestic violence case against Alexander Zverev.
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Sarthak Shitole
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