Novak Djokovic se présentait devant la presse ce samedi pour faire le point avant son entrée en lice à Roland-Garros. Il y affrontera un joueur qu'il connaît bien, l'Américain d'origine serbe Aleksandar Kovacevic, qu'il a eu l'occasion d'entraîner. Pour ne pas manquer de respect à ses premiers adversaires, l'actuel numéro 3 mondial préfère ne pas trop s'avancer dans le tournoi. Pour lui, il n'est même pas le grand favori de cet édition. Le vainqueur de 22 tournois du Grand Chelem réserve ce titre honorifique au joueur en forme du moment : Carlos Alcaraz.
Category
🥇
SportTranscription
00:00 "Thank you, it's great to be here. It's another Grand Slam, obviously every Grand
00:07 Slam at this stage of my career is a present for me so I'll try to use the opportunity
00:17 as best as possible. Leading into Roland-Garros I haven't had too much success on clay court
00:26 events but Grand Slam is a different sport to be honest. I feel always extra motivated
00:35 and confident on Grand Slams because of the success I've had over the years in this
00:44 kind of events all over the world on different surfaces. Best of five, played every second
00:51 day. It actually serves me well this kind of format because it allows me to have some
00:59 time to recover between the matches and slowly build my form. I don't want to talk about
01:10 the later stages of the tournament and who I might play or face because it's disrespectful
01:15 for the other opponents you will face in the opening round so I try to focus only on the
01:21 next challenge. Speaking of which, I'm going to play against Alex Kovacic who is an American
01:28 player with Serbian background and someone I've trained with a few times in the last
01:34 few years and we speak the same language so I think well of him. He's a very nice guy
01:40 and very talented one-handed backhand. Obviously growing up in America you didn't get to play
01:46 much on clay but I cannot underestimate anybody so hopefully I can get a good start of the
01:54 tournament and see how far I can go. For the first time in your career Novak you have the
01:59 opportunity to win potentially Slam number 23 which would take you above Rafa. Can you
02:04 just talk about how excited you are by that challenge and the hard work and effort you've
02:08 had to put in to get to this point in your career where you could become the leader in
02:13 the men's stakes? It's no secret that one of the main reasons I play today and compete
02:21 in professional tennis is to try to break more records and make more history in tennis
02:27 and that's extremely motivating and inspiring for me. But as I said at the same time things
02:34 are different than they were ten years ago in terms of how my body is responding to the
02:39 schedule. I'm playing season after season so earlier in the year I was saying that I
02:50 put emphasis and priority on the Grand Slam so I'm feeling good at the moment. I don't
02:56 have any physical issues that worry me so that's most important for me. I want to feel
03:02 good coming into the Grand Slam. That was the case with Australia this year. I played
03:10 great tennis in Adelaide and had a good lead up and then I got injured in the last few
03:17 matches in Adelaide lightly and then even more in practice week before Australia so
03:23 I had to deal with that injury throughout the entire tournament which wasn't pleasant
03:29 but I won the tournament so it was amazing to be able to win it this way. Hopefully I
03:35 don't need to deal with something like that but I have to be ready that eventually things
03:40 like that might happen nowadays more than that was the case before. Part of me is of
03:50 course confident and always aspires to win Grand Slams and biggest titles in this sport
04:01 but I also have to be humble about the fact that things are a bit different with the way
04:08 I'm feeling on the court month after month. The beating is harder than it was before physically
04:18 so I'll try to balance things out. I know how to approach the Grand Slam. I know how
04:26 to live during these few weeks day in and day out and I hope that I'll have a few weeks.
04:33 It would mean that I went far in the tournament but I have a very good team of people around
04:39 me and so far things have been progressing well in the last week of training and history
04:48 being on the line is something that is very flattering and is very motivating, no doubt
04:53 about it. Obviously Nadal not playing in the tournament here is a big loss for tennis,
05:00 is a big loss for Roland-Garros because he's by far the most successful player to play
05:05 in this tournament in history. So of course it opens up a chance and opportunity for the
05:14 rest of us to try to get a title because whenever he plays he's an absolute favourite here or
05:20 any play court tournament for that matter. You have big names of course like Alcaraz,
05:27 he's number one in the world and probably the biggest favourite in the tournament and
05:33 Tsitsipas and Medvedev, they started playing great on clay and Rooney, Rude, guys like
05:38 Verev that knows how to play big events and can always do damage against anybody. So I
05:47 think the tournament is quite open to be honest, there may be a few guys that are at the top
05:52 of the favourites list but anyone can take it and I'm hoping it can be me.