Novak Djokovic's former coach, Goran Ivanisevic, claimed that the Serbian is well aware that many want to see him fail.
The 24-time major winner is one of the best tennis players ever, if not the best, but still, he is not exactly the most popular. He is among the most popular players simply because he is as great as he is, but he was never close in popularity to Rafael Nadal, especially Roger Federer.
It bothered him earlier in his career, but with time, the Serbian simply accepted it for what it was and chose to remain his true self, but he's aware of how many fans, for no apparent reason, want to see him fail.
According to his former coach Ivanisevic, who talked to Sasa Ozmo, the Serbian knows many enjoy seeing him fail. We've seen this best in matches when his mistakes are cheered on by the public, who backs his opposition.
"Well he knows about all that, he is aware. A few times we spoke about it before a match where we knew that the atmosphere would be against him so we would say “look, the public will be against you, they’re just waiting for you to slip up so that they can provoke you even more”, so we would advise him to try and not be so reactive, to find ways to calm himself, some other way to decompress, but of course to shout sometimes when necessary, so we knew when it was the moment or not the moment."
He dealt with it pretty well over the years, which is why many consider him to be such a mental giant. He's played almost every Grand Slam final with the public against him, and yet he won most of them. That's not easy, but it also speaks to his greatness. Nothing came easy in his career.
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