Djokovic 'Doesn't Need To Practice Anymore', He Must Make His Schedule Busy
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Novak Djokovic will be facing a decision about his schedule for the upcoming clay season, but avoiding tournaments is not something he should do, at least according to Mats Wilander.
Djokovic has practiced his tennis craft for over three decades. As someone who started playing at the age of four, the Serbian player spent thousands of hours on the tennis courts.
Now, at 37, he is still chasing history on the ATP Tour. In an attempt to win more titles, he also tries his best to organize his schedule in a way that would maximize his chances of winning. But the question is, what does maximize his chances of winning?
Initially, Djokovic thought that the best way to do that would be to play fewer events and focus only on the Grand Slams. That's what he said last year, suggesting that he would play a much more restricted calendar than he used to.
But this year, the 24-time major winner played many more tournaments than fans anticipated him to play, and it seems that he will continue in that approach, even though he has yet to win a title.
Djokovic last played in Miami, where he lost in the final to Jakub Mensik. Now, the clay-court part of the season is around the corner, and the 99-time ATP titlist will need to make a decision about his schedule.
Former ATP World No. 1 player, Mats Wilander, spoke to TNT Sports about Djokovic, suggesting that the Serbian doesn't need to practice anymore. Instead of having a restricted schedule, the Swede suggested the current World No. 5 player play as much as possible.
"I don't think that he needs to practice any more - I don't know if he gets any better any more in practising. I think he needs to get better at playing matches again because that's the one thing you lose."
"When you start losing a little bit of confidence and when you get older, you start forgetting how to play matches and how to bring your intensity level to 100 per cent on points that are not important on the scoreboard, but points that Novak used to think are important, like the beginning of matches."
"Now, you cannot practice the nerves that you have for the first 10, 15, 20 minutes in the match. Those nerves can only be practised when you are playing a match."
One of the reasons why Djokovic appointed Andy Murray as his coach is because the Brit has gone through a similar stage of his tennis career before retiring recently.
Wilander further spoke about Djokovic, saying that even though the Serbian is maybe a bit slower than he used to, it's not a huge difference compared to a few seasons ago when he won three majors in one year.
"Has he slowed down just a little bit? We're talking about maybe two percentage points. Is his backhand not as dangerous? Or is it just the fact that today's players hit the ball harder than the players that Novak Djokovic had to beat to become the greatest of all time?"
"I think that is most probably the possibility, because I personally think that the level of tennis today is better than it's ever been, even though the greatest generation of all time has just passed us by in Roger Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic."
