Djokovic Seeks Perspective After Loss To Querrey At Wimbledon
Djokovic Seeks Perspective After Loss To Querrey At Wimbledon
Serbian looks forward to time with family and rest
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic looked to the positives on Saturday after his shock third-round exit to Sam Querrey at The Championships. “I believe in positive things in life,” said Djokovic. “I managed to win four Grand Slams in a row – two different seasons, though. I want to try to focus on that rather than on failure.
“I have a family and I have a life outside of tennis. I have plenty of things to look forward to. I’m going to obviously pay more attention to those things than tennis in the next period. I need it. It’s been a very successful year so far, but a very long one, exhausting one, in every sense of that word. I just need some rest.”
Over the past 12 months, Djokovic has won all four Grand Slam championships and eight ATP World Tour tournament titles. Last month at Roland Garros, the Serbian became just the third man to hold all four major titles at one time, joining Don Budge (1938) and Rod Laver (1962, 1969). The Serbian also became the eighth man to win all four Grand Slam championships during his career, joining Fred Perry, Budge, Laver, Roy Emerson, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
“I don’t think [the weight of history] played a big of a factor, to be honest,” said Djokovic. “Coming into this match [against Querrey], I knew that it was going to be very close, not easy to break his serve. If he’s on a roll, as he was, it’s really hard to read his serve. He hits his spots really well. Whenever he had a chance from the rally, he was going for the shots. Most of them were coming in.”
Watch: Djokovic Discusses Loss To Querrey
His 7-6(6), 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(5) loss to Querrey was Djokovic’s earliest loss at a Grand Slam championship since 2009 when he fell in the Roland Garros third round to Philipp Kohlschreiber.
While Djokovic’s quest for a calendar year Grand Slam will have to wait until next year, he’s now 46-4 on the season.
“It’s disappointing, of course, losing at a Grand Slam hurts… There is no doubt about that,” said Djokovic. “I just wasn’t feeling the ball as well as I wished. But that’s sport.”