Novak Djokovic's head wasn't the problem in his fourth round match today at the US Open.
The ailing Serb, who's already been bugged by injury, went the distance with Spain's Tommy Robredo but prevailed 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3. But along the way Nole hurt his hip, rolled his right ankle, and had more stomach issues. But pure exhaustion was the biggest issue according to the third seed:
Well, the hip was the problem, yeah, during the match, but it was more exhaustion.Will he have anything left? We'll see but in any case it's great news for either Andy Roddick or Fernando Gonzalez.
The physio helped me a lot, and it was a hot day. So mostly, you know, I don't think I would feel that bad today if I didn't finish that late two nights ago.
So it was quite difficult schedule for me, but ‑‑ so you can recover two times playing four hours is not easy, so I had to really put an effort in.
(image via Getty)
I'm exhausted after watching that one! What a day of lengthy matches.
ReplyDeleteSeems Robredo really lashed out at Nole for his injury time outs during his presser!
yeah he sure did - but we can you do if it's all within the rules?
ReplyDeleteit just comes across like sour grapes, even if he (nole) has a history of these incidents...
Oh come now, sour grapes or honest comment?
ReplyDeleteTake a look at Andy Roddick's presser. That's ridiculously funny AND true. Trust Andy to hand you a killer sound bite and make you laugh.
for sure nole has a tendency to call the trainer a lot - no argument there.
ReplyDeletei read a-rod's comments and he was clearly poking fun at nole's tendency to call the trainer, etc. - that's fair.
and sure tommy was saying the same thing but he wasn't poking fun. he seemed upset and to me it came across as sour grapes...looking for an excuse.
It was not about any "tendency" this time. Nole overstretched reaching for a FH and strained a hip muscle a bit. It was immediately shown in slo-mo and looked nasty.
ReplyDeleteSo the trainer gave him two pills to swallow and a short massage with some cream during the allowed medical TO. No biggie.
Later he rolled his ankle slightly, but there was no more MTOs, he just shook his foot and soldiered on.
Tommy was clearly sourgraping.
Oh, just read Roddick's presser. He's sure running his mouth after finally stopped losing this summer.
ReplyDeleteHe's a primitive twat who gets away with things masking it as humour.
I didn't read Tommy's interview, but that DOES sound a bit like an overreaction.
ReplyDeleteIMO Nole is one of the fairest sportsmen on the tour (applauding great points of his opponents - who else does that?!). He even called one of Tommy's shots good even though the linesman had called it out - and he lost the game then. So implying those MTO's were just tactics is a bit inappropriate, I think.
I'm sure Nole doesn't have great fun getting medical treatment.