Novak Djokovic called his Australian Open 2024 semi-final loss to Jannik Sinner on Friday as one of his worst-ever Grand Slam performances. And he has a fair reason to believe so. Although Djokovic conceded after the match that he was below par for most of the tournament, he did not reveal something about himself which Jannik Sinner did when it comes to his fitness.
In a post-match interview with Jim Courier, Jannik Sinner claimed that he could sense looking at Novak Djokovic that he was ‘not feeling that great on court’. The Italian took advantage of the same and powered through the first two sets, 6-1, 6-2. During the match in one of the breaks, as it turned out, Djokovic was seen holding his abdominal region supposedly as if to show that he had some pain he was struggling with.
For most of the tournament, Novak Djokovic was dealing with an illness which is being considered as fever or body weakness, perhaps due to the unpredictable weather conditions in Melbourne. However, an abdominal injury is most likely to hamper Novak Djokovic, unless he or his team come out with an official statement.
Interestingly, the loss comes days after Novak Djokovic admitting again that he prefers playing more of night session matches than those in the day session. Djokovic perhaps finds it much easier to control the match and his opponents with the lower bounce and can recover faster from physically challenging points or rallies played out.
While Novak Djokovic hasn’t officially announced about his next tournament either, it is very likely that he would head to the Middle East again to play in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships which would begin in the fourth week of February. Assuming that is correct, it means that Djokovic would have approximately 4 weeks to recover and prepare for the tournament, in which he lost to Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals last year.
