Novak Djokovic: I'll have to raise level if I want to make deep run at French Open

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic admitted it took him a few days to overcome the US Open incident and he was happy with the way his Rome Masters campaign turned out. 

Djokovic, a 17-time Grand Slam champion, suffered his first loss of the season when he was defaulted from his US Open round-of-16 after hitting the lines women with the ball. 

Djokovic was disappointed and frustrated with the way his US Open campaign came to an end but he showed up to Rome a few days later and ended up winning it all after beating Diego Schwartzman in the final. 

"Well, look, you know, as I said on the opening press conference here before the tournament started, I did, you know, experience mentally some kind of ups and downs in the first four or five days after that happened. Obviously I was in shock, as many other people," Djokovic said in his press conference after beating Schwartzman.

"But I moved on. Really, I never had an issue in my life to move on from something. Regardless of how difficult it is, you know, I try to, you know, take the next day and hope for the best and move on.

"Obviously having a tournament a week after that happened helped a lot, I think, just because I really wanted to get on the court and just get whatever traces of that, if there is any, out of the way."

Djokovic admits he needs to raise his level for the French Open

En route to winning it all in Rome, Djokovic also beat Salvatore Caruso, Filip Krajinovic, Dominik Koepfer and Casper Ruud. 

Djokovic managed to win it all in Rome but his path to making it all the way wasn't smooth. 

"I think I had a really good week. I don't think I played my best tennis, to be honest. I don't want to sound arrogant here. I'm of course very, very satisfied and pleased and happy to win a title. I know that I still have couple of gears, and hopefully I'll be able to raise that level for French, because that's going to be necessary if I want to go deep in the tournament," Djokovic said.

"But the positive thing is I thought I served very well throughout the tournament and I found my, let's say, A game when it was most needed in the decisive moments. When I kind of really needed to find a best game, I did."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/32TAKmG