Novak Djokovic is returning to Indian Wells for the first time since 2019, and losing early wouldn't be a failure, according to tournament director Tommy Haas.
Djokovic hasn't played in Indian Wells in 5 years and much of that had to to with COVID-19 pandemic. The Serbian never vaccinated himself which prevented him from entering the country and it's why missed the recent few editions.
He's back this year and fans are loving it and so is longtime tournament director Tommy Haas. The German knows Djokovic very well as they shared the court together.
Now they're in different roles, but the respect Haas has for Djokovic never really went away. He spoke to Eurosport about having Djokovic back at the event, including how things might go for him.
"Djokovic has had such success there, he’s coming back. I feel like every time he doesn’t win a tournament, we all look at it as a failure, right? And I hate to use that word anyway. But even the semis at the Australian Open, we all look at it like, ‘Oh, he lost in the semis, he didn’t win the Australian Open.’"
"But you know how many people of players would love to get to a semi-final one time. It’s really outrageous, so you can never count him out. He’s obviously always gonna be a favourite and he’s always gonna look at himself as like, the favourite to win the title."
Haas' comments are certainly factual, and many players would be happy with reaching a semi-final of an ATP Masters 1000 tournament, and while losing early wouldn't be the end of the world for Djokovic, he didn't fly to the United States to do that.
He flew over to try and win the event, and that's what he'll try to do. Whether he actually manages to do that remains to be seen, but he clearly has goals.
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