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Four Former Anti Novak Fans Explain Why They Now Adore Djokovic
Four tennis explain why they converted to become Novak Djokovic supporters….
Fan 1: “I used to be the biggest Federer fan, but matches like the US Open final 2015 have slowly won me over to Djokovic’s side. He is the underdog at every match, and the crowd is so biased/rude towards him. But all Djokovic does is win. Respect.”
Fan 2: “I always hated Djokovic before the the Kyle Edmund 2018 Wimbledon game. But the amount of disrespect a guy gets for his stature is just unacceptable. This was when I started rooting for him despite being a Fed fan for life. 2019 40-15 loss was painful, but never lost respect for Djokovic. This guy is a mental beast! Best of the lot. What’s more remarkable is he plays against the crowd first then the opponent.”
Fan 3: “I’ve been Roger fan since 2001, ever since he had beaten Pistol Pete. Since he had been invincible I never got a chance to know about his negative side. But they were revealed by Rafa and Novak. Roger’s game is THE most beautiful for a spectator to watch – primary reason for his humongous number of fans, secondary reason 16 majors in 6.5 years — very tough record to break, obviously attracts worldwide people’s attention. His game is creative innovative, his game is stylish, the way he moves his body while hitting various shots is so attractive to the eye to watch, his service motion is so perfect and smooth, and so many such pleasing stuff, which automatically make people become his fans – definitely Rafa and Novak too would be his fans if they weren’t tennis players. But… I noticed few flaws – Roger doesn’t have the PATIENCE to stay longer in a rally. I watched almost every important grand slam match of his more than once. Never felt it’s due to age – in fact Novak gets tired faster than Roger. Roger always tries to end the point “relatively” faster with an innovative or high speed shot. But it can’t work with super talents like Rafa and Novak, and so thus his failures. Roger’s tennis is more deep and more creative, but is not as CONSISTENT as Novak and Rafa. If they push him into a long rally and just play percentage shots, 9 out of 10 times Roger will surely end up into an unforced error. It’s inevitable. Guys must’ve noticed Novak looking towards his box and pointing at his head when he broke Roger in 3rd set of 2015 US Open final. It indicates the RECURRING ERROR PATTERNS in Roger’s game, which Novak knows and so pushed Roger in that direction and succeeded and hence the head pointer. A tennis-layman like me have noticed such patterns too from watching multiple matches. I don’t know how to write about them in words, but there are few such recurring patterns, some on forehand side, some on backhand side. I don’t understand why talents like Severin Luthi and Ivan Ljubicic are unable to help Roger fix them.”
Fan 4: “Whilst I am a complete Fed fan and I think he’s the most talented player to pick up a racquet, Novak had the edge over him mentally especially on the big points. Roger just misses a few too many shots on big points against Novak – 2019 Wimbledon final case in point! And that’s why Novak beat him more often than not in the slams. Shame because if Fed had won a few of these finals, he could of been on 23/24 slams now but alas, it wasn’t meant to be for him.”
Novak Djokovic · Roger Federer · US Open
Scoop Malinowski · September 8, 2023 at 8:13 pm
Another masterpiece by Djokovic, three sets over Shelton, some drama and controversy with Ben showing some big fight in third set and egging on fans, sneaky smiles after missed serves, but Djokovic escaped in tiebreaker after losing a break lead. High quality battle fun to watch, capped off by Novak doing Ben’s pick up phone and hang up gesture on the way to the handshake showed Novak was not pleased with Ben’s shenanigans but Ben showed he’s in this to be the best, not another Felix or Shap or Ruud, he’s here to step on feet and annoy the kingpin. Great effort and people will be buzzing about this match for a while.