Djokovic's father courts controversy again -

MIODRAG SOVILJ Thu, Jan 26, 2023 3 min read

Brash, loud, and combative, Novak Djokovic's father Srdjan has again stolen the spotlight from his son in the latest off-court controversy to rock the tennis star's career. This week, Srdjan made headlines again at the Australian Open after the 61-year-old was filmed posing with fans brandishing banned Russian flags, including one featuring Vladimir Putin, in scenes Ukraine's ambassador Thursday slammed as "a disgrace". Since the invasion of Ukraine, many in Serbia have actively thrown their support behind Moscow, with pro-Russia murals appearing in Belgrade, ultranationalist football hooligans rallying behind the Kremlin's cause, and demonstrators in support of the war taking to the streets. The controversy in Melbourne came as Djokovic had just booked his place in the semi-finals with a straight-sets thumping of Russian opponent Andrey Rublev at Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday. But for Srdjan, making waves was nothing new. Last year, Srdjan took a leading role in defending his son after he was detained and later deported from Australia over his Covid-19 vaccine status. In the Serbian capital Belgrade, he led boisterous protests filled with flag-waving demonstrators and held his own heated press conferences where he compared Djokovic's plight to that of Jesus Christ. "They try to crucify Novak too, to humiliate him... He will endure," Srdjan told reporters at the time. Over the years, Srdjan has stuck to a familiar script, framing the occasional controversy involving Djokovic as an ongoing battle between an ambitious Serb on the international stage and a jealous West. "The West doesn't like him," Srdjan told Prva TV in 2021. "They will have to accept that he is the best, and will be the best in tennis history." Born in a small mining village in impoverished Kosovo, Srdjan moved to Belgrade as a teenager where he pursued a career as a skiing instructor before meeting his wife and starting a family. Novak was their firstborn and showed early promise in sport, especially tennis. "We sat with him on a table when he was 10 years old and asked him -- what do you want to be when you grow up? He said he wanted to become the tennis number one, which we completely supported and I dedicated myself to his career," Srdjan told Serbian newspaper Kurir. But raising a tennis champion proved expensive, especially during the war years in Serbia, when the country was hit with sanctions amid the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia. Srdjan has said he sold the family's gold for cut-rate prices and even borrowed money from a loan shark to finance his son's early career. But along with the sacrifices, Srdjan also exhibited a heavy-hand in controlling his son's career -- on and off the court. "Since he was six, we look after every aspect of his career. What he would work on today, tomorrow, a month or year from now. What he eats. What he drinks," Srdjan said. "Every aspect and detail of his life is under control." Srdjan has even admitted to neglecting his other children in the quest to nurture Novak's future and described himself as a "mother, father, coach, physician -- everything". "Only Novak mattered," he told Serbian media. "All of us... were irrelevant. Everything was done so he could achieve what he did."

ROGER FEDERER : After over a year out due to injury, will make tennis comeback in March in Doha

FROM : https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/02/tennis/roger-federer-doha-comeback-spt-intl/index.html By Aleks Klosok and John Sinnott, CNN Updated 1423 GMT (2223 HKT) February 2, 2021 (CNN)Roger Federer will make his long-awaited return to tennis following double knee surgery at an ATP tournament in Doha, Qatar in March, his agent has confirmed to CNN Sport.

The 39-year-old, who is level with Spain's Rafa Nadal on 20 grand slam titles, has not played a competitive match since losing to Novak Djokovic in least year's Australian Open semifinals. Australian Open organisers announced in December that Federer would be missing the 2021 edition of the grand slam -- the first time the Swiss hasn't played the main Melbourne tournament since losing in the qualifying event in 1999. The Qatar ExxonMobil Open is scheduled takes place between March 8-13. It's a tournament Federer has won on three previous occasions in 2005, 2006 and 2011.

Rafael Nadal calls for 'wider perspective' from players in quarantine ahead of the Australian Open

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/26/tennis/rafa-nadal-australian-open-covid-federer-spt-int/index.html By Christiane Amanpour and Ben Church, CNN Updated 1953 GMT (0353 HKT) January 26, 2021 (CNN)Rafael Nadal says he feels "privileged" to be playing in this year's Australian Open as he called on his fellow stars to have a "wider perspective" on the mandatory quarantine period ahead of the tournament. The Spaniard, like every competitor from overseas, is having to isolate with his support team for two weeks after arriving in Australia, with practice time limited to only a few hours a day. He's doing so in Adelaide, with a number of other high-profile stars including Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic.

However, following a number of positive Covid-19 tests on chartered flights into Melbourne, Nadal's experience has been different from the 72 players not allowed to leave their hotel rooms for the duration of the isolation in the city which will host the first grand slam of the season. A number of competitors in Melbourne under strict quarantine have complained about their situation and lack of practice time ahead of the tournament. It has also raised questions among some as to whether those in Adelaide are getting preferential treatment. Whilst Nadal appreciates the situation is far from ideal, especially for those under tighter restrictions in Melbourne, he urged players to have a "wider perspective." "I feel very sorry for all of them but when we came here, we knew that the measures were going to be strict because we knew that the country is doing great with the pandemic," Nadal told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday "It's normal to complain [...] but on the other hand you see how many are dying around the world. You see how many people are losing their father, their mum, without having the chance to say goodbye. "It's a real thing, not a philosophical thing, that's real life. That's what's happening in my country. Close people to me are suffering this situation." Australia has recorded 28,777 Covid-19 cases to date, with 909 virus related deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, Spain has had 2,593,382 confirmed cases with 56,208 deaths. READ: Tennis great Margaret Court says she's not been invited to Australian Open

Premier confident Australian Open tennis will go ahead

Original Article : https://apnews.com/article/australia-australian-open-coronavirus-pandemic-victoria-melbourne-9b721befeac67c94e68a3fa4ab46b2ef

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The political leader of Australia’s Victorian state says despite “incredibly complex” negotiations, he is confident January’s Australian Open tennis tournament will proceed. Daniel Andrews, the state’s top lawmaker, on Monday had cast doubts over planning for the season’s first tennis Grand Slam tournament which is scheduled for Jan. 18-31 at Melbourne Park. Tennis Australia has been hoping for several months that the Victorian and Australian governments would approve a plan for players to start arriving in mid-December and to quarantine in a special training hub with their restricted entourages.

When tennis organizers announced earlier in the week that all regional tune-up tournaments would be moved to Victoria, rather than spread around other Australian capital cities as usual, Andrews reacted by saying that the revised plans were “not a done deal.” The ATP, the international men’s tennis tour, later issued a memo to its players. “In discussions with Tennis Australia over the past 24 hours, we have been informed there are some new challenges around the previously planned arrival dates for players and team members,” the ATP said. “We continue to work with Tennis Australia on confirming plans for January, and we will provide an update as soon as more information is available in the coming days. Andrews on Wednesday reiterated his earlier comments on the difficulty of holding the Australian Open in Melbourne. “It has to be done safely, it has to be done properly,” he said. “We are working very, very closely with Tennis Australia. They are working (with) all of their partners and we’re confident that we’ll finish up with an Australian Open.” The Tennis Australia decision to move all events, including the ATP Cup, to Victoria was aimed at avoiding the potential for players being stranded interstate in the event of sudden domestic border closures. Andrews’ government was in the forefront of a second wave of COVID-19 deaths in his state which saw lengthy lockdowns for Melbourne residents. He received much criticism for enforcing curfews and a strict lockdown, but the restrictions eventually worked. Victoria’s hasn’t recorded any deaths or new cases of COVID-19 for 19 days. The state accounts for 819 of the 907 people who have died from the virus across Australia. Some professional sports competitions in Australia, including the National Rugby League, the Australian Football League, Super Rugby and soccer’s A-League, went ahead after an initial lockdown in March with some players living and playing in bio-secure hubs. The Australian Open plans are similar to the buildup for the U.S. Open, the first of the tennis majors held after the global sports shutdown, when the Cincinnati tournament was moved to New York ahead of the Grand Slam. Australian Open organizers are hoping the Victoria state government will allow spectators at Melbourne Park for the Open. At this stage, the state government is allowing a crowd of up to 25% capacity at the 100,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Ground for the Australia vs. India cricket test starting on Dec. 26. “We want the event to happen, just like the (cricket),” Andrews said on Monday. “But the thing about the cricket compared to the tennis is it’s a tiny group of people (who) we think we can quarantine.” The Australian Open, he said, “is a massive event, it’s an event that all of us love ... but it comes at a time when the rest of the world is on fire.” ___ More AP tennis: https://www.apnews.com/apf-Tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Zverev relança-se na luta pelas `meias` das ATP Finals ao derrotar Schwartzman

O tenista alemão Alexander Zverev derrotou hoje Diego Schwartzman, em três "sets", na segunda ronda do grupo Tóquio1970, e deixou o argentino com um "pé" de fora das meias-finais das ATP Finals. O sétimo jogador mundial assegurou a sua primeira vitória nesta edição das ATP Finals, impondo-se ao estreante argentino por 6-3, 4-6 e 6-3, em duas horas e 12 minutos, e abriu caminho para que o sérvio Novak Djkovic garanta já hoje uma vaga nas ‘meias’, se vencer esta noite Daniil Medvedev em dois ‘sets’ (o russo avança para a próxima fase caso triunfe). O triunfo do campeão de 2018 na segunda ronda do ‘round robin’ do grupo Tóquio1970 manteve-o na luta por um lugar na fase seguinte, mas também praticamente ‘eliminou’ Schwartzman, que soma duas derrotas em dois encontros na sua estreia na competição que reúne os oito melhores tenistas da época e que decorre na O2 Arena de Londres.

Schwartzman, que é nono no ‘ranking’, mas ganhou o lugar graças à ausência de Roger Federer por lesão, precisa de um ‘milagre’ para seguir em frente, podendo mesmo ficar afastado das meias-finais já hoje, em caso de vitória de Medvedev. Já Zverev, ainda a recuperar do desgaste do Masters 1.000 de Paris, no qual foi finalista derrotado há pouco mais de uma semana, declarou que está a encarar as ATP Finals como “um torneio normal”, no qual tem de “ganhar todos os encontros”, depois de, na primeira jornada, ter perdido frente a Medvedev, o seu 'carrasco' na capital francesa. “Esperemos que possa jogar ainda melhor na sexta-feira”, disse o alemão, que precisa de ganhar a Djokovic no terceiro e último encontro da fase de grupos para seguir em frente.

ROLAND GARROS: ZVEREV MOSTRA TESTE NEGATIVO APÓS TER JOGADO DOENTE

Alemão que teve febre e que estava com dificuldades respiratórias no jogo frente ao italiano Jannik Sinner

Alexander Zverev, que no domingo afirmou ter jogado doente frente ao italiano Jannik Sinner nos oitavos de final de Roland Garros, teve resultado negativo no teste à covid-19. O tenista alemão tinha dito que teve febre e que estava com dificuldades respiratórias, o que são sintomas da covid-19. Nas redes sociais, Zverev revelou o resultado que fez entretanto e que deu negativo. Em declarações à Eurosport, o tenista afirmou: «Estou a sentir-me melhor. Tinha uma gripe, também se apanha apesar de estarmos em pandemia. Jogámos muitos dias ao frio e chuva e o meu corpo estava fraco. Preciso de descansar. Tinha dificuldades de respirar porque a minha garganta estava inflamada e o meu nariz entupido depois de uma noite com febre, provavelmente.» Zverev disse ainda que não informou a equipa médica de Roland Garros sobre os sintomas antes do jogo. «Não havia nenhuma obrigação de indicar se estava doente ou não.»

João Sousa: "Não me tenho sentido bem em campo, tenho andado desanimado"

IN O JOGO/Início/Modalidades/Ténis https://www.ojogo.pt/modalidades/tenis/noticias/joao-sousa-nao-me-tenho-sentido-bem-em-campo-tenho-andado-desanimado-12790903.html Tenista português caiu na primeira ronda de Roland Garros. O tenista português João Sousa mostrou-se "desanimado" com a derrota na primeira ronda de Roland Garros, terceiro "major da temporada, frente ao eslovaco Andrej Martin, num encontro em que se sentiu "completamente perdido dentro do campo".

"Tem sido recorrente, infelizmente. Não me tenho sentido bem em campo, tenho andado desanimado animicamente. Tenho treinado bem e competido muito mal. Este é mais um resultado mau, dececionante e a verdade é que as coisas não me têm corrido bem, está a ser difícil aceitar isso", confessou ao site Bola Amarela, após o desaire por 7-5, 6-1 e 6-2. Depois de ter falhado o acesso à segunda ronda nas últimas duas edições do torneio francês do Grand Slam, o número 77 mundial voltou a não ser bem-sucedido na estreia em Paris e, defende, o "encontro por si diz tudo" "Simplesmente não joguei bem, não fiz as coisas corretas, não joguei bem taticamente, não fiz nada bem e acaba por ser um resultado desfavorável, sem tirar mérito ao adversário. Nos treinos tenho estado muito bem. Fiz treinos muito bons. Fiz sets de treino muito bons e a minha expectativa para esta primeira ronda, independentemente das condições que não me são favoráveis, eram grandes. Desde o princípio não me senti bem, completamente perdido dentro do campo. Não consegui jogar e dar a volta a essa situação", contou. João Sousa não vence um encontro do quadro principal de um torneio ATP desde o Master 1.000 de Shangai, em outubro de 2019, quando deu por concluída precocemente a temporada com uma fratura de esforço no pé esquerdo, mas diz que a "lesão não serve de desculpa para as fracas exibições." "Na minha cabeça conta, mas não é por causa do pé. Falta muita confiança, muito ritmo de jogo, falta muita coisa", sublinhou o número um nacional, de 31 anos.