Djokovic in a fight to be right for Rio
NOVAK DJOKOVIC appeared in no hurry to leave SW19 yesterday as he was pictured out and about relaxing in Wimbledon village. The world No 1 is determined to take it easy for a while and rest up ahead of his bid to win an Olympic gold after being knocked out here by American Sam Querrey on Saturday. He told Serbian media that clinching the French Open — the only major he was missing — had proved more taxing than he expected, and that had been exacerbated by a disrupted build-up to Wimbledon. Among the reasons floated on social media for his defeat was a supposed bust-up with wife Jelena, who was not in his player box during Saturday’s match. However, she was inside the arena but out of vision, sitting several rows back as the player enclosure on Court One is smaller than on Centre. That would appear to pour cold water on suggestions that he has issues affecting him away from the court. Djokovic feels he was unfortunate that his two planned warm-up matches at the Boodles exhibition event were wrecked by the weather. He only managed to play one of them, and that was highly unsatisfactory due to the rain making the court slippery and his fears of getting injured. There appears little prospect of him pulling out of the Olympics, although he is monitoring the Zika virus situation. He believes he needs to win gold to cement his place among the all-time greats of the game. The dilemma is whether to play later this month at the Canadian Open, because he now finds himself short of matches. Djokovic played intensively for four of the five weeks spanning the Madrid Open to the French Open. But if he doesn’t play again before Rio, then he would only have played three times in nine weeks ahead of the Games. Roger Federer, now the highest seed left in the top half of the men’s draw, discounted the theory that this will be a longterm setback. ‘I am sure this is just a hiccup for him right now and as long as he is healthy he will be super tough to beat for the rest of this summer,’ the Swiss told the BBC yesterday. Confirmation that Djokovic will not play in the Davis Cup quarter-final against Great Britain in Belgrade next week was expected. GB captain Leon Smith is due to name his squad tomorrow and will be hoping that world No 2 Andy Murray does not make a late withdrawal.