“Nothing personal but I dislike him,” Italian legend Adriano Panatta slams Novak Djokovic for his unpleasant statements
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Adriano Panatta, Novak Djokovic
Italian tennis legend Adriano Panatta recently shared his thoughts on several things on the current happenings in tennis. Starting from his favourite out of the Big 3 to the Wimbledon banning Russian players. The Italian legend who has been a Grand Slam winner back in 1976 at the French Open won a total of 10 career titles and reached the highest ranking of World No.4.
Panatta with his compatriots also bagged the Davis Cup in the same year in 1976 as Italy became a major power in the tennis circuit. He was a very good Doubles player aswell, in fact, he played doubles even better and had won 18 career titles mostly pairing up with fellow Italian Paolo Bertolucci.
However, in a recent interview with Rai Radio 1, the Italian shared his favourite tennis player among the Big 3 comprising of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The 71-year-old claimed that he does not watch tennis a lot but he favours Federer the most as he believes him to be the leading face of the sport even till date. He then shares how he likes Rafael Nadal from a humanitarian angle. But he does not fancy Djokovic that much mostly because of his controversial statements and then his stance on vaccination.
“I am following someone like Federer, who was and always will be tennis,” Panatta said. “Nadal? I enjoy watching his matches and above all, I admire him from a human point of view“ Djokovic? Nothing personal but I dislike him, I’m a bit unpleasant with all the statements he made in the last two years. He hasn’t got one right.”
Novak Djokovic to take on Andrey Rublev in the Serbia Open final showdown
Novak Djokovic after faltering at the Monte Carlo Masters has shown a lot of fight in reaching the finals at the Serbia Open where he will be up against Russia’s Andrey Rublev. The Serb till now has had to work very hard for each and every win in this tournament as he is far from his best shape.
The 20-time Grand Slam winner started his journey against compatriot Laslo Djere in an epic three-set battle in which he somehow sneaked out. Djere was was in the driver’s seat at one point in the game but fumbled under pressure. In the quarterfinals, Djokovic faced another Serb in Miomir Kacmanovic and the Serbian duo played out yet another three-setter as he here came from behind to thwart the youngster.
Lastly in the semifinals, Djokovic faced Karen Khachanov. Here again, he had to come back to win the match from a set down to reach the finals. So all three matches till now have been very hard fought wins and in all three of them, the World No.1 has spent a lot of time on the court, something that he was looking to do ahead of the Roland Garros.
The finals at the Serbia Open is a proper top seed against the second seed clash as Rublev will be looking to continue his destructive form against the World No.1 at his home event in from of his home crowd. But for Djokovic, it will be a statement of intent if he wins the title as it will give a warning message to his rivals as he has one eye on the Roland Garros title.
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Atrayo Bhattacharya
(193 Articles Published)