Novak Djokovic Might Not Play The Madrid Masters

Hope it’s not so. He feels rested and plays, he gets free points and of course has a good chance to win it again and demoralize Rafa along the way.
But the crowd is rather nasty to non-Spaniards except of course the noble Roger, and the fast clay is not like the slow clay of MC, Rome – which is a prep to the slow, high bounce clay of Roland Garros.

April 27th, 2015 at 11:15 am

He should skip a crowd that doesn’t appreciate greatness.

April 27th, 2015 at 12:33 pm

Smart move..Madrid surface is not similar to RG. Rome is more similar to RG. So, Why even bother playing in Madrid. Common sense…

April 27th, 2015 at 12:45 pm

django. Are you serious? After what he said to the Madrid crowd in 2013 he is lucky they didn’t ban him from future tourneys! Geez!

April 27th, 2015 at 12:55 pm

looks like he’s definitely not playing now, according to si.com anyhow

http://www.si.com/tennis/2015/04/27/novak-djokovic-withdraws-madrid-open-2015-atp-masters

April 27th, 2015 at 1:01 pm

ckr – You detailed the negatives, but there is an up side if Djoker feels like it would not lower his chances for Roland Garros. An upside of several things.

1. A chance to pick up one thousand more points, subtract points from Rafa possibly.
2. A chance to get in Rafa’s head even more if he beats Nadal or Nadal loses to someone else, distracted with Djokovic waiting down the road for him.
3. He has 3 Masters, with an excellent chance to equal or exceed his 2011 tally of 5.
4. He has won 5 straight of the 10 ATP’s own big events – Masters and WTF. A Masters Sweep + WTF in a year is thought to be impossible, too many events and too many surfaces. Harder than a Grand Slam to achieve.
5. Yes, the FO is important. But there are other big things it is possible or distantly possible, to accomplish.
5.

April 27th, 2015 at 1:08 pm

cf1. You really are a hater and a sadistic one at that!
Remember Karma!

April 27th, 2015 at 1:27 pm

Giles – Keep your slimy personal comments to yourself. And a tip – only college students, OWS lowlifes, and tools use the accusation “Hater!” on people anymore.

April 27th, 2015 at 2:40 pm

chris ford1 – Those are all good points. However, they will not mean a thing, if he doesn’t win RG. Also, there is a chance of burnout if he plays both Madrid & Rome. There is a chance he might loose to someone like Berdych and Nishikori which is never a good sign.

Skipping Madrid this year would help him to add good number of points next year, if his results in first 3 masters are not stellar like this year.

I think he did a smart thing by keeping things simple and focus on RG only.

April 27th, 2015 at 3:32 pm

Great decision!

I wrote yesterday under another post on this site that Novak would be foolish for playing Madrid. The Madrid fans and their behaviour towards Novak in 2013 deserved a solid “you won’t see me ever again” greeting card from him. Last year, Novak excused himself with a sore wrist – it is time now to not use any excuse and simply tell those marvelous Spanish audience and Tiriac that they won’t see him again – and legally he is allowed due to his “600-seniority” to skip 1 Masters a year.

Chris Ford said above that Madrid crowd is nasty to non-Spaniards. Not true at all! Check the 2013 Djokovic-Dimitrov match and see whether the crowd was nasty to the non-spaniard Dimitrov!!??? The problem Madrid folks (and most Rafa fanatics) have with Novak is a simple one – they cannot stand the guy who has beaten their hero in SEVEN finals in a row – that has never happened before to No.1/No.2 player and will likely never happen again – it is such a rare achievement. I understand Spaniards for having hard time dealing with this fact – however I never understood why would they project their dissatisfaction and hate to Novak? It was not his fault that he was too good for Nadal in those 7 finals!

But then I read Dr. Fuentes doping case and saw how Spanish society deals with issues and few things became clearer to me. Remember, this “good” doctor was also connected to many athletes, including tennis players. He had bags of blood of all the guys who doped at his office – we are talking hundreds of blood bags! And what the Spanish court decided after declaring Fuentes guilty of administering doping??? The judge ordered all blood samples destroyed – I guess Spanish justice was swift and simple in that case – no evidence means no guilt!

Let them have their Masters tournament without undisputed #1 player. They thoroughly deserved it!

April 27th, 2015 at 3:43 pm

nothing has been confirmed. there is no mention on novak’s website nor at the ATP site as to whether or not nole is playing madrid. so i guess we still need to wait and see.

in my opinion, nole’s not going to let a crowd keep him away from an event. that’s not his style. he’s always played madrid and only did not play last year due to his wrist.

if he doesn’t play this year my guess would be that the team wants to rest / practice after a very busy and successful first quarter of the season. it might also be because he’s finally reached 600 match wins so he *can* opt out of a masters event for the first time.

April 27th, 2015 at 3:50 pm

@Travis Bickle. While I agree it’s a good idea for Nole to skip Madrid, I agree with jane that Nole’s not going to let a hostile crowd keep him from playing a tournament.

About the Fuentes stuff, don’t ask me how I know but any discussions of doping in tennis will at the least get you moderated if not banned. Personally I believe in freedom of speech but that’ how it is on the majority of tennis forums.

Been enjoying your posts and hope you stay around.

April 27th, 2015 at 4:33 pm

@jalep:

A discussion about doping, if done with arguments, has never lead to a moderation on this site. I wrote a lot about it, had discussion with HC about all the players, discussed the details, gave links… without any problems. The key is to remain objective as much as possible and not to lose his temper.

April 27th, 2015 at 5:08 pm

I don’t know if he should skip Madrid. But he has a good, experienced team, and they certainly will take a wise decision.

April 27th, 2015 at 5:12 pm

Really mat4?

Well, I’ll play it safe and see how it’s done here. It’s not my favorite topic but I don’t think it should be ignored and taboo. Should be a special thread where it can be discussed and those offended can ignore the thread.

April 27th, 2015 at 5:19 pm

“django. Are you serious? After what he said to the Madrid crowd in 2013 he is lucky they didn’t ban him from future tourneys! Geez!”

Ion Tiriac is the owner of the tournament and not Madrid peasants, he would never ever ban Nole for a few reasons. As far as I am concerned, Nole should never play Madrid again, they didn’t deserve to have him. Nole will not play this year.

April 27th, 2015 at 6:08 pm

I wouldn’t pay any attention to what Marca says. SI.Tennis just spread rumours without doing the obvious thing: picking up the phone and asking Novak’s team.

The respected Serbian outlet B92 did just that and they were told that a decision would be made by the end of the week.

There are good reasons for playing and good reasons for not playing.

I think Novak should think of his preparation for Roland Garros, not of the crowd.

Madrid crowds are worse than the usual hostile crowds Novak gets, but not that much. This particular crowd was a strange phenomenon: a bunch of hooligans took control of the crowd and it all went crazy. I am sure that many people in that crowd were embarrased of their behaviour.

I don’t entirely blame them: Rafa was ready to rule after a fantastic 2010 and then Novak 2.0 showed up, it’s bound to hurt. That behaviour is unacceptable, though.

And, Travis: the entire world was shocked by the Spanish judges order to destroy all the samples. If I was a Spanish athelete, I would have insisted my sample was kept to prove my innocence…but nobody did. Rumours are that that was the reason Spain lost its bid to host the Olympics… Who knows?

April 27th, 2015 at 6:22 pm

Yolita, if Nole decides to play, I am pretty sure he won’t, it will be only because of Ion Tiriac and Boris Becker, but I sincerely hope that Boris is not going to ask Nole for that kind of favour. Nole plays Wimbledon without warm up toutnament and he is going to have MC and Rome as warm up tournaments for FO, more than enough, besides, Italians love him.

April 27th, 2015 at 6:45 pm

I don’t think Nole is particularly bothered by a hostile crowd.There was a time when he was pretty unpopular in America, but he didn’t let it upset him.

Also. it’s only fair to remind ourselves that HIS fans have on occasion caused trouble at the Australian Open!

April 27th, 2015 at 7:48 pm

“ourselves that HIS fans have on occasion caused trouble at the Australian Open!”

Colin, can you be ore specific so I can reply properly, please?

April 27th, 2015 at 7:54 pm

“more” and not “ore”

April 27th, 2015 at 7:55 pm

Wog – Masters are more than just warmups for the Holy Four tournaments.
If all they were were warmups, why not just take in a 250 or a 500 instead? If is isn’t one of the only 4 that matter – what’s the difference?
It’s the Masters money, endorser visibility, points, it’s own prestige. Point-wise, 2 Masters = 1 Slam. Same players that show for the Holy Four events show up for the Masters events and play just as hard.

April 27th, 2015 at 8:10 pm

Well, in all honesty, he should miss this even and not give those rude spectators the time of day. That crowd is just plain terrible and non-deserving of having No1e grace those courts. They can keep their B-grade players instead.

April 27th, 2015 at 8:19 pm

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/jan/23/australian-open-violence-djokovic

Wog Boy, I should alter my remark to read “were involved in” rather than “caused”. Lord knows who started it, but it must have been a Serb who crowned that Bosnian woman with a chair.

These Slavs are so excitable. Dash it all, they just aren’t British!

By the way, Wikipedia, who we all know are not always reliable, say Nole has withdrawn. If so, Andy might get another crack at Roger, which I’m sure he’d welcome.

April 27th, 2015 at 8:25 pm

CF1,

I do get your point, I might be, well, irrational, but I just wouldn’t like to see him in Madrid.

Colin, I am still waiting for your specifics about Nole fans misbehaving during the match at AO, I am one of Nole fans who went to Melbourne every but one year so I took your comment personally, please come back to me, thanks.

April 27th, 2015 at 8:41 pm

^^ I didn’t realized you already posted the answer, thanks, give me few minutes and I’ll get back to you.

April 27th, 2015 at 8:44 pm

“Wog Boy, I should alter my remark to read “were involved in” rather than “caused”. Lord knows who started it, but it must have been a Serb who crowned that Bosnian woman with a chair.”

First to clarify, I knew you are referring to that incident, that wasn’t during the match or in any of arenas, it was outside when three parties of hooligans met each other, yes it was three parties (Croatians, Bosnians and Serbians) and got stuck into each other. So to compare that with Madrid crowd (all of them) and their behavior during Nole/Grigor match is just plain wrong, since the one of them occurred outside stadiums.
As for the woman hit with the chair, well she was a part of one hooligan group involved in the fight, if she wasn’t there she wouldn’t be hit, she was active member and if you throw thechair towards the group that is fighting you, you are throwing with aim to hit one of them. The women are most dangerous in the group fight because everyone is trying not hit them, because they are women, but they jumping on your back, scratching you, pulling your hair, hitting you in your nuts and yet you don’t feel comfortable to hit them!

As for Brits, well, I’ve seen a lot of football matches from UK, and aftermaths of them, do I have to remind how much Glazgow Rangers supporters “love” Seltic ones, I was told by my Scotish friend here that you are not allowed to enter the pub on Glazgow in either jersey, ManU love Leeds ones and so on. It wasn in Slavs countries tha spectators died in tens on the stadium, it was in England, it wasn’t Slavic people that coused Heysel Stadium tragedy it was English, it wasn’t Slavic teams that were banned competing in Europe for five years it was English clubs, at least nobody died in Melbourne, one light plastic chair in n the head and few punches thrown, that is about it;)

April 27th, 2015 at 9:10 pm

The Madrid crowd was nasty but so it was the words of Djokovic.
Neither of them was right.

April 27th, 2015 at 10:04 pm

^^
Agree, Bole knew straight away that he did wrong thing and that is when his concentration when out through the window and he promptly lost to Grigor.

April 27th, 2015 at 10:38 pm

Bole or Nole, doesn’t matter..

April 27th, 2015 at 10:39 pm

Marca is not real journalism btw.

April 27th, 2015 at 11:08 pm

Nole please let the b team play Madrid and you stay and relax in maldives

April 28th, 2015 at 12:14 am

Lol django :)
Like your style.

April 28th, 2015 at 1:54 am

The last time someone other than Djoker won an important tennis tournament (defined as 1000, 1500 and 2000 points tournaments) was in October 2014.

If Novak skips Madrid, it will be the first time in the last six months that a winner is unknown before the tournament. It is much more interesting that way. Another reason for Novak to skip Madrid…

April 28th, 2015 at 2:06 am

This leaves the door open for Murphy to take the Madrid title….if he chooses to play

April 28th, 2015 at 2:37 am

“Are you serious? After what he said to the Madrid crowd in 2013 he is lucky they didn’t ban him from future tourneys! Geez!”

You can “geez it” all you want but it was the Madrid crowd that started it. They were plain obnoxious. So, it was not “AFTER what he said to the Madrid crowd” but rather, what the Madrid crowd did and how it behaved BEFORE he said what he said. In Serbian. More to himself than to the crowd or anyone in that crowd. So, sorry but it was a provoked reaction to mob mentality.

Sincerely,
a fan of Bole and Murphy :)

April 28th, 2015 at 2:56 am

danica, be nationalist is fine but be chauvinist is another thing. I hope you undestand.

April 28th, 2015 at 3:10 am

Matador,
actually, I don’t.

April 28th, 2015 at 3:46 am

Now, I don’t know to who the nationalistic or chauvinistic label you are attaching. To me or to Nole? There was nothing nationalistic nor chauvinistic neither in his outburst (for such, take a closer look at Mrs. Murphy or even Mrs. Federer) nor in my comment above. So, a bit clarification please?

April 28th, 2015 at 3:51 am

^^
I am confused too, you didn’t mention Spain or Spaniards nor Serbians in any (negative) context, only Madrid tennis crowd, same as I did. Nole or Bole hasn’t either.

April 28th, 2015 at 3:57 am

I mean the Madrid crow had an awful behaviour against Djokovic, very “hooliganistic” in terms of football, but Djokovic response was also a bad behaviour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4zKjhbvze4
I hope you dont be sensitive about this.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:03 am

@Matador,

We agreed that his reaction was wrong, there is nothing sensitive about it, no? But the question is where who did you refer as nationalistic or chauvinistic, where did you get that from?

April 28th, 2015 at 4:08 am

I also think that Novak’s reaction was inappropriate and, quite frankly, very ugly.

The only thing I regret is that he didn’t win that tournament. It would have been the best answer to the hostile public.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:14 am

But — unrelated to tennis, a few remarks:

The official western narrative is, despite our best intentions, affecting our vision of certain nations or people. Today, somebody mentioned Slavic people in a negative way (and Brando wrote some silly things about Novak and Serbia the other day), but Slavic people are very different one from the other.

E.g., South Slavic nations are genetically related to the indigenous people of yore, while Swedes, Norwegians are more related to Polish and Belarus, than to South Germans. Their habits, behaviour, way of thinking are very different.

Then, did you know that, for years, the evil Russians were absolutely very positive about America? It was almost their dreamland. The looting of their country changed all that. The Serbs were extremely well seen in France and Britain (just go on archive.org and find some English books about WWI) because there were our only ally in two wars in the Balkans, but it suddenly changed with our geopolitical interests in the planned final confrontation with Russia — a confrontation we are loosing, btw.

The unfortunate case of France in north Africa… I won’t even try to mention it. We are making a joke of ourselves there, and all our culture, our previous glory, is forgotten.

Anyway, it would be very funny for me to write how most of the world perceives our western civilization — and it would be a long post. To put it mildly: we are not the “good guys”.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:40 am

Wog boy,
Prefer not comment further on the subject.
People of all nationalities become very sensitive and defensive when they do not like comments on local heroes and end up exacerbating the sake of argument.
Is walking on muddy waters, I hope you understand.
End of it.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:42 am

Matador,
I believe all of us here agree that Nole’s reaction wasn’t polite. I also think that most would agree that the Madrid crowd was behaving in a very rude manner. Some posters here said much more damning things about the crowd and yet, something in my post sounded nationalistic and/or chauvinistic (?!).

As for Madrid tournament itself, my feeling is that Novak and his team have a clearly set plan towards the FO title, and Madrid doesn’t fit in it. It has nothing to do with the crowd and everything to do with the kind of clay and altitude. Monte Carlo and Rome are the closest he can get to the FO courts so it seems like he wants a continuous play on such a surface.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:52 am

I want also to mention here WB’s reaction about Spaniards. It wasn’t OK, neither, and we all have to be more careful about such remarks.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:53 am

Yes mat4, and we payed a terrible price in both wars, we lost one third of our population in the first and one fifth of our population in the second WW, for taking the right side, just to be bombed by our “allies” in 1999 and have birth place of our culture and nation taken away from us by force by our “allies”, the rest is the history:( all former Hitler allies in Europe are now thriving, the ones that “solved” Jewish and Gipsy problem well before Hitler did, you know that same as I know that.

April 28th, 2015 at 4:57 am

mat4, can you remind me what did I say about Spaniards, please? I was talking about Madrid tennis crowd, same as you. Do you know that most popular song in Belgrade when Generalísimo Francisco Franco died was “E Viva Espana”, every single restaurant with live music in Belgrade use to sing that song few times every evening. Do I have to tell you how many Serbian volunteers died In Spain during their civil war fighting Franco and how do we know about “no pasaran”? No I don’t think so.

April 28th, 2015 at 5:12 am

@WB:

I usually post at les-crises.fr such comments, but in French, unfortunately for you. You can find me there under my name. If you want to know my opinions about Serbia, I am a friend of Yves Bataille and his wife, Mila Aleckovic, I knew the late Dragos Kalajic, who founded a kind of “Rinascita” in Serbian, I know Ugo Gaudenzi too.

April 28th, 2015 at 5:18 am

mat4, I know your opinion about Serbia and I will be honored to be your host in August beginning of September in Belgrade, my invitation is still on and Sean is free to give you my email address or you can come to Nole forum and you find me there under the same name “Wog Boy” and then we can exchange details through PM (private message). I am pretty sure you live about 900km from Belgrade and air fare with Air Serbia is around €100, so don’t try to find excuse, I am waiting for you there, bring your family too, apartment is big enough.
If you have any problems joining Nole forum let me know here and I’ll speak with admin, very nice lady from Canada and it is not jane. That is English forum, I don’t post in Serbian one.

April 28th, 2015 at 5:37 am

@Ron Smith
Murphy is indeedy playing Madrid, but winning? Dunno about that. Last time he won there it was indoors on hard! He has yet to win a clay court title of any kind. Let’s see how he does in Munich.
@TB
Pistols at dawn, I said. I was there. Where were you, may I ask?

April 28th, 2015 at 7:03 am

@WB:

I am in FYROM right now.

April 28th, 2015 at 7:15 am

mat4, very nice and hardworking people with great music, greatsoul but with no bright future, sadly.

April 28th, 2015 at 7:33 am

Someone said please make love not war!
So play tennis not war… ;-)

I never post here, but I read many interesting informations from both side. (Salut Mat4) Great to reat so many Nole’s supporters, so i can understand both (all) sides.

Lastly, Nole have always thriving under hostile crow… Some frenchies name him “Menton”, but i don’t think Nole is pretentious as poeple claim.

PS: i’m a hugh fan of underdog, WTA, Roger and Tennis…

April 28th, 2015 at 8:48 am

Assuming he doesn’t play Madrid and goes to finals in Rome, entering RG with 10 matches on clay will be enough?! Seems a decent number, plus he will only be playing in the 2 surfaces resemble RG the most so could be a smart move. If he wins Rome than he’ll be sky high on confidence, specially if he gets another win over Nadal in Rome.

I think until Thursday we’ll know for sure if he will play or not.

April 28th, 2015 at 9:47 am

@Matador
I have a problem with false equivalences.
Of course Novak’s words were not polite, but to say “they were both wrong” makes the two actions equivalent.
It is not the same to attack somebody as it is to defend oneself. Sarting a fight is not the same as defending oneself.
But somehow these days everything is the same. The aggressor gets the same criticism than the one who fends off aggression.
I think it is not correct.
Attacking and reacting are not morally equivalent actions.

April 28th, 2015 at 11:23 am

@Margot – Not long until Murphymania begins again. Can’t wait – how about you?

April 28th, 2015 at 11:25 am

@ the DA
A mixture of expectation and trepidation….as per usual!

April 28th, 2015 at 11:30 am

……..and am a bit worried about this new, young cove David Murray. Seems to have come out of nowhere…….;)

April 28th, 2015 at 11:32 am

Margot – heh, Margot – naughty but nice…

April 28th, 2015 at 3:11 pm

Hello LR! Glad you’re here!

April 28th, 2015 at 4:13 pm

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/29/my-favourite-cannes-winner-taxi-driver

Just for our very own Travis :)

April 29th, 2015 at 1:06 pm

I am safe here, on Nole’s thread, if I pop this question to knowledgeable posters , and there is quite a few of them lately on TX, and the question is:

If the rules that set the height of tennis net were established God knows when, and the players in that era were shorter on average 10cm than todays players, shouldn’ they think of raising the net?

April 29th, 2015 at 7:27 pm

@Mat4
I’m a bit lost here… so many thread… A bit difficult to follow…

April 29th, 2015 at 7:31 pm

^^you’ll get used, trust me, and then you become addicted to TX:)

April 29th, 2015 at 7:34 pm

Wog Boy,

Some 15 or so years ago, I remember talks of a few changes in tennis that were deemed necessary in order to make a game a bit more dependent on skill and not just huge serve. One of the suggestions was for the net to be higher. Other was to shorten the service field. I think those were good ideas.

April 30th, 2015 at 1:01 am

@Wog Boy @7:34

Trust me, I’m in rehab because of the TX forum!! Lol

April 30th, 2015 at 1:28 am

Many comments regarding Madrid crowd, can somebody enlighten me regarding what the Madrid crowd did so bad that Novak reacted like he did as shown in the youtube link posted above. And which year was this? Also i dont understand what Novak did is considered so bad, he sweared some in his own language. How is it that bad? I mean everyone does once in a while.
Thanks in advance.

April 30th, 2015 at 3:13 am

Nole is not playing Madrid, it is official.

April 30th, 2015 at 8:19 am

Shailesh,
Yeah don’t get that either. Besides, they the very best ball boys….errr….ladies..on tour👍

April 30th, 2015 at 10:29 am

@Wog Boy @7:34
I better sign up for rehab now before I get addicted to TX… ^_^
PS: Here at TX is where Mat4 went missing! ;-)

April 30th, 2015 at 11:58 am