“It wasn’t fair to him”, Marin Cilic sympathizes with Novak Djokovic’s “disastrous” deportation saga last year
Marin Cilic sympathizes with Novak Djokovic for whatever happened in Australia last year.
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Marin Cilic with Novak Djokovic
Talking ahead of the Tata Open in Pune, India, Croatian World No.17 Marin Cilic opined that the Serbian World No.5 Novak Djokovic‘s separation saga during the Australian Open 2022 was “disastrous”. He was asked a question on how the Serbian’s chances in Australian Open looks this year and how it will affect the tournament as a whole.
Cilic talked about the immense mental strength of Djokovic to win almost everything he played later in 2022 despite missing a lot of tournaments due to covid vaccine mandates.
As quoted by the Croatian, “He went through, you know, very big emotional difficulty in that January of last year and it was definitely whatever it was. It wasn’t fair to him, absolutely not and that was disastrous for him as an athlete to go through those things. It’s just extremely difficult and proves again that he’s got that stellar ability to keep his focus, to keep his mentality“
Continuing his train of thought, Cilic wished all the best wishes to the Serbian after pointing out some of his notable performances last year, “To be up and then still winning a Grand Slam in this last year. So hats off to him. Managed to play great tennis and really amazing end of the season fantastic. He played after the US Open we played in Tel Aviv and then also in Kazakhstan and Brazil. He was playing amazing tennis, so. And also talks about him when he decided to go and play over there prior to the Australian Open. So yeah, wishing him absolutely all the best for this season.“
Also Read: Marin Cilic confident of challenging anyone on the tour after a “positive” 2022
Novak Djokovic will start his season in Adelaide
Serbian World No.5 Novak Djokovic has won almost everything where he got a chance this year. After missing most of the tournaments, including 2 majors, he is still inside the top 5 despite getting no points on winning Wimbledon. This in short proves how effective he has been in the tournaments he got a chance to play this year.
Including the triumph in Wimbledon, Djokovic jointly owns the record for the most ATP titles won with Carlos Alcaraz in 2022(5). With the ATP finals title, Djokovic became the first player since Roger Federer in 2010 to win at least one title each of each level in the same calendar season. The Serbian won 5 titles this season: 1 ATP250,1 ATP500,1 ATP1000, 1 ATP Finals, and 1 Grand Slam.
Djokovic also increases the ‘Big Titles’ count to 65 in 2022- the highest ever in history. The closest competitor is Rafael Nadal with 59. (For the uninitiated, ‘Big titles’ include the titles won in Grand Slam championships, ATP Finals, ATP Masters 1000 tournament, and an Olympic singles gold medal)
By ending the year as number 5 in the rankings, Novak Djokovic has finished the year inside Top-5 for the 15th time (1 behind All-time record held by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal with 16 Top-5 year finishes). With a bunch of records broken despite not playing a number of tournaments this year, a rejuvenated Djokovic will try to break more in 2023. The green signal to play Australian Open will be a huge boost for him as well.
Also Read: Aryna Sabalenka slams the British Government claiming the Wimbledon ban changed nothing.
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Vipul Payattuparambil
(552 Articles Published)