'I Felt Like Energy Shifted A Bit': Djokovic On Doing Nadal Impersonations After Beating Him

Saturday, 16 September 2023 at 16:00

bySebastian Dahlman

Novak Djokovic used to do impressions early on in his career, but he stopped doing that after a while out of respect for his fellow players, including Rafael Nadal.

Djokovic doing impressions happened a very long time ago when a video of him from the locker room surfaced online. He was asked to do a few on the tennis court in front of packed stands after that, and he obliged for a while but slowly started to decline, so people stopped asking.

He would explain later that he stopped out of respect for his fellow colleagues, which makes sense, but he didn't lose the talent. We saw him earlier this year doing an impression of Snoop Dogg at the Monaco Players Party.

Recently, the 36-year-old spoke to John McEnroe on ESPN about doing impersonations of his opponents, namely Rafael Nadal, among others. He gave a really interesting response on the matter.

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Early on in my career, when he was kicking my a** on the tennis court, he was ok with that, but when I started winning a few matches I felt like the energy shifted a bit.

— Djokovic on Nadal's stance on his impressions<br>

That's very interesting but also makes sense on a human level. We tend to tolerate things far more when we are in a good mood and you're in a good mood while you're winning in tennis. As soon as you start losing, it changes, of course, and that may have been the case with Nadal, but also with Ben Shelton recently.

That's why players lash out at umpires far more when they're losing and break racquets in losses more so than in wins. It's just human nature, but even so, Djokovic matured as well, so he stopped doing it altogether. For old-time's sake, it would be interesting to see a throwback impression from Djokovic.