The quarterfinals reached at Wimbledon by Novak Djokovic certify the great work done by the Serb and his staff in the three weeks following the surgery to the meniscus of his right knee. The London Major seemed like a utopia, but now, after the convincing victory in three sets over Holger Rune in the 4th round, the Serb has already reached the quarterfinals. Now the draw is quite interesting and the road to the final is far from impossible, indeed: in the quarterfinals Nole will find Alex De Minaur, in the possible semifinal, one between Lorenzo Musetti and Taylor Fritz. An eventual victory in the final, then, would guarantee Djokovic to match the record of 8 titles won at Wimbledon by Roger Federer.
In the post match, Djokovic had a controversy with Rune’s fans and talked about the crowd issue at the press conference, also expressing his opinion on the rivalry with Federer and Rafael Nadal.
“The first Major is always special (he won at the Australian Open 2008 – ed.). But it took me three years to win the second one, I struggled a lot to understand what I needed to beat Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in particular who were dominating the Tour. They were winning all the Slams. I learned to do it the hard way possible, through these rivalries with those two. There were key moments in my career, like winning the Davis Cup for my country. Bringing the first Davis Cup to Serbia was special. After that I had one of the best – if not the best – seasons of my career and won three Slams. That’s when I became a better player.
I started to believe that I deserved to be at the top and that I could do better than Federer and Nadal. There are different levels of achievements in our sport. The most important is to understand how to win a Slam, then how to become number one and then how to win more than one Slam. Many players fail to achieve these goals. I am grateful to be in this position and proud of everything I have achieved. I know how difficult it is. Zverev, for example, is one of those players who deserves to win a Slam. He came very close at the US Open against Dominic Thiem and this year he lost in the fifth to Carlos Alcaraz. It’s not easy: the more time passes, the more you think about it. The pressure increases and you start to have doubts,” he said.
Djokovic then wanted to reiterate his position in the press conference on some disrespectful behavior adopted by the crowd during the match with Rune. The Danish player’s fans often tend to highlight the first two letters of his surname – Ruuu – producing a sound effect that is very similar to the annoying Buuu. The Serbian champion believes that several spectators took advantage of this to make completely gratuitous Buuu sounds towards him.
“Should Wimbledon take action? I don’t know what they can really do about it. In those particular moments, the crowd has paid for the ticket, they have the right to be there and cheer as they want. How they choose to behave or support a player is entirely up to them. We can think that maybe a referee or someone could intervene at certain moments and calm the crowd down. But there is not much you can do, you can’t throw out a part of the entire stadium because they are acting disrespectfully.
It’s part of the sport. It’s one of the reasons why we are here, why the tournament is so important historically, why we are recognized worldwide as tennis players. It’s thanks to the fans for the interest they show in watching tennis matches, in paying for tickets. I respect that. I try to recognize all the true tennis fans who really respect the players. Of course they decide who they support and cheer for. It’s completely understandable. They have the freedom to choose who they support during a match, but if someone crosses the line, I react,” he explained.
Already in the on-court interview, Nole had criticized the crowd.
“For all the people who were respectful, have a good night. For all those who tried to disrespect me, have a goooood night!” told the Serb in the interview given at the center of the court a few minutes after the match point.
The interviewer wanted to delve deeper into the matter to understand if the world number 2 had really heard the noises against him. During the match, in fact, a series of Ruuune chants could be heard to encourage the 21-year-old.
“I know they were applauding Holger, but it was just an excuse to boo me too. I don’t accept that. I’ve been on the tour for 20 years. I’ve played in much more hostile environments, trust me. You guys can’t touch me,” he added with a new attack on the crowd.
