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DUBAI DUTY FREE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS MENFebruary 27, 2012Marko DjokovicDUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES A. GOLUBEV/M. Djokovic THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Was that another useful experience for you? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yes. It was a for me. Pleasant playing in Dubai in strong tournament with all the players which play here. I don't know the number, 8 of top 10. I didn't give my best as I could do, but there was a lot of pressure and I tried. I was running as much as possible, even though I couldn't hit that good. So it was a really good experience, and hopefully... Last year I had tough year. I got injured in the beginning. I start to play in challengers and all these tournaments stronger and improving a lot, and then I got injured in beginning of the January and I didn't play for ten months tennis at all. My wrist. Now I'm starting back again, so hopefully my health, you know, and body will be good so I can improve and play here next year quallies without a wildcard. Q. Is your wrist okay now? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yes, it's perfect. I had the surgery. I had a really tough time because I'm still young and I was thinking to go to college or not. But now I know that I can play good tennis. Golubev played really good today, and I saw the quality of the tennis is not that far away from my tennis. Hopefully I can improve a lot. I'm still young, so will be good to continue. Q. What's the difference playing a guy like that and the sort of opponents that you've been playing in futures and challengers? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Just, you know, tennis, everybody knows to play tennis. 500, they play really good tennis and everything, but it's just the mental toughness and physical as well. On important points, you know, he served really good. He broke me when he needed to in first set. You can see the difference. You know, it's nothing ‑‑ it's not that different from futures tennis. Still a lot of players in futures which are playing really good tennis, top quality, but not mentally. So just mentally when you get ready you can come to top hundred. Q. Your brother was watching you today. Does it help? Does it contribute? Does he tell you anything before? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yes, of course. Of course to a brother like that is a privilege. He's helping me a lot with all the advices. He knows a lot about tennis, and he's trying to push me to go more and more, to improve, to not make mistakes that he made in that stage of his life, you know, his age. But, okay, we cannot compare. He was No. 3 already 20 years old. But still, life experience and everything. So he's helping me a lot. We are in really good relation. We have one more younger brother who is also playing tennis. He's 16 years old. So we're all pushing ourselves to go further. Q. What did he tell you today before the match? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Nothing. He just told me, Relax and play your best. It's important that I play my game. If I play my game, hopefully I will win. So it's nothing that you don't know. Q. Are you staying with him this week? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yes. Yes, of course. I stayed last year with him, and here as well. He won the tournament, so hopefully this year as well. Q. Yesterday Novak talked about being the first and the pressure that comes with being the brother of No. 1. Can you also talk about the pressures? How has life changed for you in the past year? MARKO DJOKOVIC: It's tough to say, because there have been a lot of positive and negative things being his brother, you know. It's a lot positive. Financially, you know, I have all the needs and I can get all the coaches and all the practice I environment. But negatives things, there are a lot of pressure. Everybody expects you to be as a brother, which is really tough to achieve. But I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm doing my best. Past two years I forget about, you know. Just putting on side that he's my brother. He's my older brother and nothing else. And I'm keeping with the pressure, so hopefully... Q. When your father asked you to chose for your future, why did you pick tennis? MARKO DJOKOVIC: I don't know. I was watching Novak. I remember already when he was six years old. I'm four year younger than him. He started playing tennis on the mountain. I was following him all these years, going to school as well, watching him, practicing next to him. He was my idol from when I was younger. So I was always in tennis, and my younger brother as well. So we like it a lot. You know, it was my decision. It was nobody else. My father told me, You can chose whatever you want to do in your life. It's your life. I chose tennis. Q. And your style is very similar. Is that because copied him all the way through? MARKO DJOKOVIC: I don't know. I can't tell about my style. You can tell it. But we practiced and had a lot of same coaches as well. I was practicing in Germany where he was practicing with Niki Pilic. When he was young as well I was practicing with his coach, so maybe that's why we have a similar style. But the younger brother has a really similar style as he do as well, so maybe... Q. Do you practice much with Novak? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yeah. Q. Do you ever beat him? MARKO DJOKOVIC: (Smiling.) Yeah, we play, you know, until 11, you know the balls, from tossing the balls. Because servers today, if I serve today there is no change to beat him, because today I was serving really not good. With these kind of players, top 100, it's tough to be without the serve. But I'm trying to beat him. He's my brother, and watching him like that, always the things we do in life ‑ you know, playing PlayStation, football, basketball, all these things ‑ you're trying to, you know, to see who's better. Doesn't matter if he's No. 1... Q. Who's a better footballer? Who's a better PlayStation player? MARKO DJOKOVIC: I'm more technology. Football, I can't say. Maybe he's going to get angry. Q. But you beat him at PlayStation? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yeah. Q. What about skiing? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yeah, skiing is after tennis maybe the same. I love skiing so much. My whole family was professional skiers, you know, and my father as well. I grew up on skis more than on tennis. I was choosing as well I can go to skiing, but I chose tennis. Skiing for us is such an enjoyment because we grew up on this mountain and we skied together. We were going now. Before Dubai we were one week on this mountain and go together skiing. It was a great time to be back there, you know, because Novak didn't have time to go there, so... Q.  The physical condition of Novak is incredible. I'm wondering, do you use the similar training way? Are you also gluten‑free? MARKO DJOKOVIC: I'm trying to get what is ‑‑you know, he is advising me about all these things, about gluten free, what to do in fitness. But we are trying to find the right ‑‑ because not everybody is different, you know. Maybe the things that he do doesn't fit to me, you know. But we're trying to find a way, find exercises, and all these things for me. Q. Do you find when you play people that they play harder against you because they want to say, I've beaten Djokovic? MARKO DJOKOVIC: It was pretty funny. When I was younger, when Novak started, you know, 18, 19, when he started to go really good, going top 10, top 3 and I played under‑16, under‑14 tournaments, it was weird playing first round. You know, there is only parents and coaches watching. And then on my match, I believe there were 100 people watching my match. So it was pretty tough in the beginning. I got used to it somehow. Yeah, it was tough when I was younger, but now I got through it. Q. Do you think people want to beat you more? MARKO DJOKOVIC: Yeah, I don't know. Exactly I don't know. Maybe sometimes I have advantage because maybe they get scared. You know, Novak's brother. I have to beat him. Like Golubev today, he started so‑so in beginning. I broke him. It depends. But the futures, the level I start now, they're trying more. They're trying more. I played quallies and futures and was coming back from the injury, and was so tough. It was really tough. I had to fight for every point. So this is big difference when they play against me and then when I see them playing against somebody else. Q. When did you stop in Munich to work with Niki Pilic? MARKO DJOKOVIC: When did I stop? Q. When did you stop. MARKO DJOKOVIC: I stop two or three years ago, three years ago. I was there for two years from 15 to 17; after that, I improved a lot, so I started working bit more with individual coach, then academy. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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