‘Chaser’ question offends Djokovic
MELBOURNE, Australia—The most successful player ever in men’s tennis felt disrespected and had to pause before summarizing the offending question out loud just to process it again.
Novak Djokovic, winner of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, including 10 at the Australian Open, was fielding questions about his pending semifinal with defending champion Jannik Sinner when he returned serve on one that he didn’t like.
In a nutshell, he was asked to compare eras from when he broke onto the scene while Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were at the top of tennis to now, when Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have blocked him from winning a major for the last two seasons.
“I’m chasing Jannik and Carlos?” he responded. “In which sense?”
In terms of trying to break the “Sincaraz” streak of eight titles.
“So I’m always the chaser and I’m never being chased?” he asked. “I find it a little bit disrespectful that you kind of miss out on what happened in between, where the times when I started chasing, as you say, Rafa and Roger, and now that I’m chasing Carlos and Jannik and there’s probably about a 15-year period in between where I was dominating the Grand Slams.
“It’s important to put that in perspective. I don’t feel like I’m chasing, to be honest. I’m creating my own history.”
The top four seeds reached the final four in the Australian Open men’s draw, with No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and No. 3 Alexander Zverev set to meet in Friday’s other semifinal. The winners will advance to the championship decider on Sunday.
Make no mistake, the 38-year-old Djokovic is in Melbourne with one objective: to win a 25th Grand Slam singles title. That would cement him as the most decorated tennis player of all time. He reached the semifinals at all four majors last year, but didn’t contest a final.
