“I did five angrier things every match” Andy Roddick believes the 2020 US Open incident made Novak Djokovic the ‘victim of the unluckiest thing ever’
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Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick
Novak Djokovic is one of the most decorated tennis players of all time and to his credit, he has chased down records very quickly as compared to others. Bursting onto the scene when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were dominating men’s tennis, the Serbian made a place for himself to be ranked equally with the two and either matched their records or broke them.
With Federer reaching the 20-major mark at the 2018 Australian Open and Nadal achieving the feat at the 2020 French Open, Novak was on 12 majors when Roger was a 20-time champion and he was on 17 majors when Rafa matched Federer’s tally. Djokovic matched the duo in the very next season winning all three majors of the 2021 season and nearly overtook them at the 2021 US Open but was unfortunate to lose in the finals of the major.
“He was in full flight, just killing people” Andy Roddick on Novak Djokovic’s form in 2020
However, he has since then not won a major as he was kept out of Australia for not being vaccinated which saw him unable to play at the 2022 Australian Open where he was the 3-time defending champion. The vaccination policy of the USA will also keep Novak out of bounds as he refuses to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and will have to miss the major later this year.
Despite this, former World No. 1 Andy Roddick believes that the real reason Novak is not leading the Grand Slam race is his removal from the 2020 US Open. Djokovic was playing in the 4th round of the Grand Slam when he accidentally hit a lineswoman and was defaulted as a result of it losing all the ranking points and prize money won in the edition.
“If you cruise back to the US Open in 2020 Novak was in full flight, just killing people, it looked like he was kind of gonna kind of run away with this, this all-time record. He slaps the ball. It’s the most unlucky thing ever, because I did five things that were angrier, every match, but it hits a lady in the throat. She goes down and he’s out of the tournament.
“Then Australia happens this year with the vax, the vaccine drama. And it looks like he, as of now, won’t be able to come to New York either and play in the US Open. We didn’t see this wrench (Covid) when we were trying to predict it in 2019, and he’s sticking to it. He’s not gonna get vaccinated, so I don’t know how to predict that. I don’t know how to predict health,” said Roddick speaking on Kasich and Klepper Podcast.
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Sarthak Shitole
(3462 Articles Published)