Djokovic Explains His Decision To Compete In Geneva Week Before Roland Garros
ATP
Novak Djokovic surprised many when he signed up for the 2024 Geneva Open in the week before Roland Garros but he's now explained why he chose to do that.
The Serbian once famously said that he enjoys playing in the week leading up to a Grand Slam. He reasoned it as a chance to fine-tune his game just in time for an important tournament like that.
The flip side of that is fatigue, which is a bit alleviated by playing every other day at a Grand Slam. Djokovic's preparation for this year's Roland Garros hasn't been that well because he hasn't played as many matches as he had hoped.
The plan was to do that in Rome, but the bottle incident cut that short. Djokovic has seemingly since recovered from that, as he opted to play in Geneva.
It shocked many, including Andy Roddick, but the American explained in his podcast why he thinks it might be a good decision. Ahead of the ATP 250 tournament, Djokovic himself spoke to the media about why he chose to play in the Swiss city.
"The reason why I chose to come and play is because I feel like at this moment, there is no better practice for me than match play. I feel like I need more matches, even if it’s one match, two matches, three, four hopefully. It’s good for me, because that’s the way for me to try to find that kind of form that I need for Roland-Garros."
There truly is no better practice than proper match play, and he needs matches. Winning Roland Garros won't be easy, and the more matches he plays on clay before it, the likelier it will be that he does it. On top of that, best-of-five matches are a different kind of challenge, and that's why the Serbian also prepares for that.
"In terms of fitness, I’ve dedicated quite a bit of time with my new fitness coach to build the endurance, to build physical strength and capabilities that I need in order to play a best-of-five Grand Slam on the physically most demanding surface, which is clay."
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