Novak Djokovic spoke on bad sportsmanship shown by Cameron Norrie during their encounter in Rome.
It was a straight sets win for Djokovic over Norrie that saw him reach the last eight in Rome.
The top seed will now face Holger Rune in the quarter-finals at 12:00 BST time on Wednesday afternoon.
However the current world number one’s contest with Norrie wasn’t without incident as their was a very frosty handshake at the end of the match.
That was because Djokovic wasn’t happy with a Norrie smash that hit the six-time champion on the leg.
After the match Djokovic addressed his tense altercation with the 13th seed, “I did watch the replay when he hit me. Yeah, maybe you could say he didn’t hit me deliberately,” Djokovic said in his press conference.
“I don’t know if he saw me. I mean, peripheralically [sic] you can always see where the player is positioned on the court. The ball was super slow and super close to the net. I just turned around because the point was over for me.
“It was not so much maybe about that, but it was maybe a combination of things. From the very beginning, I don’t know, he was doing all the things that were allowed. He’s allowed to take a medical timeout. He’s allowed to hit a player. He’s allowed to say C’mon in the face more or less every single point from basically first game.
“Those are the things that we players know in the locker room it’s not fair play, it’s not how we treat each other. But, again, it’s allowed, so…”
It’s quite clear that Djokovic wasn’t happy with the unsportsmanlike conduct of Norrie during the match.
However later in his answer about the incident, Djokovic said he is determined to move on as he gets on with the Brit well, “I got along with Cameron really well all these years that he’s been on the tour,” Djokovic admitted.
“Practiced with each other. He’s very nice guy off the court, so I don’t understand this kind of attitude on the court, to be honest. But it is what it is. He brought the fire, and I responded to that.
“I’m not going to allow someone behaving like this just bending my head. I’m going to respond to that. That’s all it is. What happens on the court, we leave it on the court, and we move on.”
Well Djokovic will look to continue to focus on his on-court tennis rather than the issue of sportsmanship in the future days as he looks to intensify his preparations for Roland Garros.
Roland Garros starts on the 28th of May with Djokovic projected to be the second seed.
