After playing only one tournament in 2022, Novak Djokovic properly kicks off his season at the Monte-Carlo Masters as the first-seeded.
Novak Djokovic's 2022 season was not what he would imagine it to be so far. The Serbian player went through the Australian deportation saga and didn't play any tournament except for the Dubai Championships, where he lost to Jiri Vesely.
Now, he will start the clay-court season in Monte Carlo and is one of the hottest favorites to win the title in the first ATP Masters 1000 clay-court event of the season. However, he will face a tough opposition as he can meet rising star Carlos Alcaraz already in the quarterfinals.
As all other players, Novak had a lot of questions to answer at the press conference prior to the tournament when he spoke about his motivation:
"I still feel motivated to be on the Tour and compete with young guys and try to challenge the best players in the world for the biggest titles."
"I'm very pleased to be here and Monaco has been home for over ten years. I have been eagerly waiting for the moment when I will be out competing again, so this is the best place where I could possibly start."
The Serbian will start his tournament against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who won his first-round match against Marcos Giron and set up the clash with world number 1. After finishing last year with 22 victories from 24 matches on clay, Djokovic will be a hard favorite in the majority of his matches.
"Clay court is the surface on which I grew up in Serbia and played many years only on that surface actually. Historically it hasn't been my most successful surface, but I have had some big success on clay. The Roland Garros win last year is still fresh in my memory, so I try to use that as an inspiration to kick-start the clay-court season in the best possible way."
One of the biggest questions to answer are, if Novak Djokovic is 100% ready to compete after playing only 1 match this season.
"I understand that I probably won't be at my best at the beginning of this week. I am still testing my engine, so to say, and building my game, so it will take obviously some time, some matches to really get in the groove and find the competitive play that I really need."
One of the main goals this season for Djokovic will also be the fight with Daniil Medvedev for world number 1 position. After the Russian failed to deliver good results during the Sunshine Swing, Djokovic kept his no. 1 rankings and will likely improve his lead during the clay-court part of the season.
"Being World No. 1 is the highest achievement that you can have in our sport, so I'll try to maintain that position as much as possible."
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