“It’s not easy, not easy, not easy,” repeated Goran Ivanisevic, the coach of Novak Djokovic crowned at the Masters on Sunday, revealing that the Serbian had not given any sign of life for a day, after his defeat in a group match against Jannik Sinner on Tuesday.
“He’s the best player in the history of tennis,” assured the Croatian, after “Djoko’s” seventh victory at the ATP Masters, a new record. “But it’s not easy when he loses a match. (After his defeat against Sinner on Tuesday evening), we didn’t see him all day on Wednesday,” explained the former world No.2. “Until Thursday, we didn’t know what was going to happen, we didn’t know if we were going to go home or if we had to prepare the warm-up for his match against (Polish Hubert) Hurkacz. We waited and waited and we finally learned that he was going to play,” continued the 2001 Wimbledon winner who has been training Djokovic since June 2019.
“Like any human being, he must manage his inner conflicts (….) It’s not easy, not easy, not easy. He’s the No.1, he always wants more, he always wants to improve,” he added. Ivanisevic, however, never doubted the outcome of this tournament: “From the moment he was going to play in the semi-finals, I knew that he was going to win the title and that the real Novak would make his return.”
The 36-year-old Serbian easily dominated Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final 6-3, 6-2 and was just as authoritarian to dismiss Sinner 6-3, 6-3 in the final, two players who are for Ivanisevic “the future of tennis. “Sinner is catching up with Alcaraz, he has shown that he is capable of winning a Grand Slam title next year, he is not afraid of anyone,” he concluded.