Novak Djokovic Splits With Coach Marian Vajda Who Didn’t Want Him Playing The Olympics
The longtime coaching relationship between Marian Vajda and Novak Djokovic is over, the world No.2 confirmed Wednesday.
“Marian has been by my side during the most important and memorable moments in my career. Together we have achieved some incredible things and I am very grateful for his friendship and dedication over the last 15 years. While he might be leaving the professional team he will always be family and I can’t thank him enough for all he has done,” Djokovic said in a statement.
Marian Vajda said, “During my time with Novak, I have been lucky to watch him transform into the player he is today. I will look back on our time together with immense pride and am so very thankful for the success we have achieved. I remain his biggest support on and off the court and look forward to new challenges.”
The 56-year-old Vajda began with Djokovic in 2006, and led the Serb to all 20 of his Grand Slam titles, but has been absent recently giving the reigns to Goran Ivanisevic.
Vajda has been off the tour in the past to be with his family. There are also now reports he wasn’t on the same page with Djokovic scheduling last summer and the partnership actually ended after Turin last year.
Vajda said he was against Djokovic playing the Olympics with so much at stake in New York. In the end, Djokovic came up short in both events.
“It’s true. We officially agreed after the championship tournament in Turin,” Vajda said to a Slovak news outlet.
“Not everything went smoothly since the end of July, culminating in New York, where he lacked the last step towards great fame,” he added to the paper via google translation. “There he already ran out of strength in the finals, because he lost a lot of them at the Olympics. I was not in favor of his participation in Tokyo, the deadlines were busy, there was little time to prepare and the failure under the five circles drained him a lot of mental and physical strength.
“I understood his goal, he longed to win gold for Serbia, he broke up there and then it turned out in New York.”
Vajda added with Djokovic limited schedule in 2022, the time was right to part.
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