Was Novak Djokovic affected by ATP chaos? A tennis pundit thinks so
Tennis pundit and commentator, Rob Kroenig commented on Novak Djokovic's fourth-round loss to Roberto Bautista Agut at the Miami Open. The Serb did not play his best tennis throughout the week as he struggled in the first set against Bernard Tomic and then in the third round, against Federico Delbonis. Kroenig believes Djokovic was affected by off-court matters: "Last week, [in Indian Wells] there was a lot going on with Chris Kermode and all the controversy surrounding that," he said. "His name was linked to it a lot. I think he was asked a lot about it in press. I did see a training session with him last week that he captured on social media and he said, ‘Time for me to focus on the tennis and I’m going to be ready for Miami.’ So no excuses this week. Don’t know what’s going on in the background. But you can’t make any excuses. Today he was beaten by a better player.”
The Hard Rock Stadium hosted the Miami Open for the first time. “It is also a low-bouncing court and I thought that played into Bautista Agut’s hands," admitted Kroenig. "Novak likes the ball up high, he likes to be able to step on his ground, generate pace through the court by taking it early. Bautista Agut doesn’t give him that luxury. I thought that was significant. The other thing was how he went after the second serve of Novak. That can be an Achilles but you’ve got to exploit it. He did that so well, we saw the double faults on break points, the break point conversion rate of Djokovic was poor."
Bautista Agut lost in the quarter-finals to John Isner in Miami.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2uAVHB9
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