Sea Air Helping To Re-Charge Djokovic

Novak Djokovic believes that his trip to the south coast of England to compete at the Aegon International will have a positive effect on every aspect of his game.

Speaking after his 25th match win of the year on Wednesday, the Serbian star admitted, “I came to Eastbourne because I wanted to experience match play – mentally, physically and tactically – every way you look at it. Because grass is a different surface from any other, I would like to get as much time on the court as possible.

“The movement is very different from clay or hard courts. You’ve got to be very soft, very gentle, but yet very reactive… I’m trying to get as much of the match situations as possible, hear the chair umpire say 30-all, 4-all. Those kind of intense moments.”

Djokovic, the highest-ranked male player to compete in Eastbourne since Marcelo Rios in 1999, has not competed at a grass-court event prior to Wimbledon since the 2010 Aegon Championships.

Four days into his stay at Devonshire Park, the venue of the ATP World Tour 250 tournament, the 30 year old says the fans have made him feel most welcome.

“It’s a very kind of informal tournament in a good way, where you can go around the grounds and kind of interact with people,” said Djokovic. “Sure, people come up to you, but they respect you if you’re going with a purpose to a certain court to observe a match or something like that. That’s what happened the other day. People are really kind of respectful and giving me space for certain time until I finished with my scouting.

“That’s the nice thing about this tournament. I don’t get to experience that. Usually I am, like most of the top players, in the locker rooms or especially in the areas where the players are going to be around. So it’s nice to go around the outside courts and observe, because that’s what we all used to do. It’s good to do that again for a change.”

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Djokovic has not lifted an ATP World Tour trophy since the first week of the season at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (d. Murray) in January. With Wimbledon set to begin on 3 July, the Serbian admitted that it’s “good to not be one of the top favourites.”

“I was very fortunate and privileged to have so much success in the past eight, nine years, and kind of enter most of the tournaments as one of the biggest favourites to win it.

“It is ‘liberating’ a bit. It releases a bit of the pressure. It’s always there. I mean, you still feel it. It’s part of who I am, what I do. And what I have achieved so far has added to those expectations from the people around.

“I try to lower those expectations myself, because I really want to be as much as I can, at this stage of my life and career, in the moment and try to focus only on what comes up next. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to win trophies and so forth. Of course I do, that’s why I’m playing professional tennis. But it’s just that I need to take things a bit slower and try and re-calibrate so I can get to the level where I want to get.

Djokovic, currently No. 4 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, has been named as second seed for The Championships at Wimbledon, where he is a three-time former champion.