Novak Djokovic on how he dealt with whole crowd supporting Roger Federer
Almost the entire crowd on Sunday was cheering for Roger Federer in the Swiss player's eventual loss to Novak Djokovic. The Serb, who experienced similar environments like in the 2015 US Open when 22,000 people were shouting Roger's name, commented on how he coped with it. "That's a good question because at times you just try to ignore it, which is quite hard. I like to transmutate it in a way: When the crowd is chanting 'Roger' I hear 'Novak' (smiling). It sounds silly, but it is like that. I try to convince myself that it's like that."
On how he feels to have won such an epic battle against Federer, Djokovic added: "It was a huge relief in the end, honestly. In these kind of matches, you work for, you live for, they give sense and they give value to every minute you spend on the court training and working to get yourself in this position and play the match with one of your greatest rivals of all time. I mean, that was one thing that I promised myself coming on to the court today, that I need to stay calm and composed, because I knew that the atmosphere will be as it was. Obviously Roger is playing well. I mean, I kind of predicted the scenarios in my head already, visualized what's going to happen. It was probably the most demanding, mentally most demanding, match I was ever part of. I had the most physically demanding match against Nadal in the finals of Australia that went almost six hours. But mentally this was different level, because of everything. I'm just obviously thrilled and overjoyed with emotions to be sitting here in front of you as a winner."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2NVwe1I
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