Novak Djokovic suffered a pretty bad loss at the Indian Wells Open, and according to former coach Goran Ivanisevic, part of it was the worst he saw him play.
The 24-time major champion generally doesn't have many bad performances, but they do tend to happen from time to time to everyone. Even when he's playing badly, the Serbian manages to find a way to win, which has impressed his former coach, Goran Ivanisevic, many times.
It's part of a champion's DNA, finding ways to win even if the level is not where it needs to be. It hasn't been working the same way this year because when he played badly, Djokovic lost.
The Indian Wells Open loss to Luca Nardi was particularly bad, especially since the Italian is a player ranked outside of the Top 100. He showed cracks in the earlier match against Aleksandar Vukic, which Ivanisevic believes could have gone the Australian's way as well.
"To come back to this American swing, I think if (Aleksandar) Vukic believed more he probably could have beaten him as well. That first set against (Luca) Nardi was maybe the worst set that I saw him play in these five years that I’ve been his coach."
Djokovic's performance was indeed very bad. He found a bit of rhythm in the second set and won that one, but the Italian came back with another strong showing in the third set and ultimately won the match, and according to his former coach, Djokovic wasn't ready for that.
"The second he won, and the third I have to admit that Nardi saw that he could beat him, he hit 16 winners, not taking anything away from him. Novak simply wasn’t ready for that battle, even though he really tried it just didn’t go his way. Nardi is actually really good, in my opinion he should be in the top 50 already."
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