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Novak Djokovic, Tennis News

Novak Djokovic: ‘I have learned the strength and resilience to bounce back from adversity’


Novak Djokovic says he had the mental strength to deal with his various troubles in 2020, although it showed that tennis is one big learning curve.

Djokovic came in for tremendous criticism from the press at time times last year, not all of which being entirely fair.

He presided over the Adria Tour exhibition event, only to see it quickly abandoned mid-tournament due to a coronavirus outbreak.

The world number one was later disqualified from the US Open for striking a female line-judge with a ball, and came under attack from inside tennis when he set up a new independent player’s association.

Djokovic, though, says that while he is happy to admit his mistakes, he won’t be broken by criticism.

“Tennis, it’s kind of my learning ground,” Novak Djokovic told CNN. “My strongest, most beautiful emotions surface there, but also the worst of my emotions surface there.

“I see life as a great learning curve, and I feel over the years I kind of learned how to bounce back

“I have tremendous experience of traveling around the world and being on top of the men’s game for many years, and that has helped me to develop the mental strength and resilience.

“But I still am human being as anybody else. I still have my fears, my insecurities. I still make mistakes and errors.”


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Michael Graham, Tennishead.net Editor, has been a professional sports journalist for his whole career and is especially passionate about tennis. He's been the Editor of Tennishead.net for over 5 years and loves watching live tennis by visiting as many tournaments as possible. Michael specialises in writing in-depth features about the ATP & WTA tours.