AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 20, 2023

Novak Djokovic

Press Conference

N. DJOKOVIC/E. Couacaud

6-1, 6-7, 6-2, 6-0

THE MODERATOR: We'll go straight into questions.

Q. How are you feeling?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Good. You?

Q. I'm good. Had a good match?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Good. Very good (smiling).

I can elaborate. I know what he was asking me (laughter).

Look, I'm glad that I managed to win this match, of course, in four sets. Credit to Enzo for playing well, very well, I think in the second set. A lot of things were happening during this match. It was obviously him and I had some injuries, medical timeouts.

My situation with my injury is not ideal. I obviously don't want to go too deep into that. I wish that some things were different with the way I feel with my leg, but it is what it is. I have to take it day by day.

Good thing that we have in Grand Slams is always a day off between the matches, so at least you have some time to try to recover and get ready for the next match.

That's what I'm going to do. I am not practicing basically on the days between 'cause I'm trying to give myself the more time possible for my leg to be in somewhat of an 'ideal' state for performance on a high level.

Q. On a similar issue. How confident or worried are you you're going to be able to play five more matches with your hamstring?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I am worried. I mean, I cannot say that I'm not. I have reason to be worried.

But at the same time I have to accept the circumstances and try to adjust myself with my team. My physio and medical team has been doing everything possible so that I can be able to play every match.

There's not much more to talk about. There's two choices: leave it or keep going. So I'm going to keep going. I'm going to try to play and compete with, of course, a great player Dimitrov in a couple days' time.

I know matches are only going to get tougher for me from here. Two years ago I had kind of similar circumstances here in Australia with a different muscle where I had a tear and I had to deal with that. Somehow I pushed it through and won the tournament.

But it's different now, obviously. I don't know how my body's going to react. I hope for the best. I hope for the positive outcome. I'll take it day by day, match by match, and see how it goes.

Q. It's 12:30 now. There's matches still going on. How hard is this on your body and every other tennis player's body to be playing in the middle of the night like this? Is it something that you want to change?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I don't know how we can change that (smiling). The schedule is affected by the weather obviously. Last few days we know we had heat rule, we had rain. It pushed back some of the matches that went deep into night yesterday, obviously again today.

I think quite a few players talked about the different balls this year than they were two years ago or last year. They're a bit slower. I think obviously weather being colder than it normally is, it's also affecting the play. It's slower. The ball bounces slower, so more rallies, more physical battles, not many short points.

That's obviously something that you just have to accept and deal with. I mean, it's best-of-five for us guys. Yeah, it's not perfect that when you finish a match or now it's 12:30, as you mentioned, and then you have to do recovery, so forth, and you go to sleep, 3, 4, 5 a.m., it affects recovery and the next day.

The good thing is you have a day between the matches, on a positive note.

Q. You spoke to the chair umpire out there about a fan. Why did you feel the need to do that tonight?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, first of all, I have to say it was the situation that involved few individuals, so I'm not generalizing here. Most of the people, super majority of the people, is here or some other situations that I had in the past in some other tournaments, is always respectful. They are great fans and pay the ticket to watch you. I respect that. That's sport. Some people like you more, cheer for you, some don't. It's not something that I would say I have a problem with.

What I have a problem with is when somebody's crossing the line - numerous times. From the very beginning, guys that were under the influence of alcohol, it was obvious, and I was grabbing my towel very close to them, particularly one guy, you heard his voice various times tonight, was insulting me and provoking me and saying things that were not respectful at all.

So I tolerated for over one and a half hours, almost two hours. I was giving signs to the chair umpire, looking at the chair umpire looking at the guy. I think the chair umpire, supervisor, whoever is responsible for handling the crowd, should have done a bit more and anticipated me coming out to the chair umpire and looking like a bad guy because this is how I'm going to look like now in the media, in the public, because I'm the guy that kicked out some other guy.

It's just unnecessary because why should we as players be put in a position where we have to always react when it's been two hours. It's not been 10 minutes. This is what I mind, and this is why I felt the need to go out there because I had enough, you know?

I can tolerate five, six times somebody telling me something, but there is a limit. That limit was crossed, and I stepped in and I asked the chair umpire, is he going to do something about it or not? He did, and I thanked him.

I feel like it's unnecessary for me or any other player to be put in this position after long time that match is already going, during of the match has already been two hours. It's plenty of time for supervisor, chair umpire, whoever is responsible, to react before a player.

Q. Looking to the year ahead, the men's tour is scheduled to return to China this year. The women's tour, it's up in the air. Do you think it's appropriate or right to return to China, given the whereabouts of Peng Shuai is still up in the air? How do you feel about that?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, you have a situation with Peng Shuai. You have also a COVID situation that is, from what he would see in the media, not good at all in China. I mean, there is still time in terms of ATP Tour before our eventual tournaments in Shanghai and Beijing and other cities. Hopefully situation can change for better, and players will not have as many restrictions going there.

I don't know how it's going to look like. It's not looking good at all when I see it in the media now.

I don't know what to tell you, to be honest, in regards to China. I always loved playing in China. I had some amazing results. I actually never lost in Beijing tournament and won it quite a few times. Shanghai... I have a great fan base. People in China love tennis, love racquet sports.

I feel for people there for not being able to also watch the top-level tennis tournaments, both men and women, for now already what has been two or three years.

I hope it passes soon, that we'll all be able to go there. Until then, I don't know. I mean, it's really also not up to me to decide. I mean, it's up to government obviously of China to evaluate, and ATP, WTA, whether or not tournaments can be organized under these circumstances.