Novak Djokovic says he doesn’t want to get involved in an argument about his latest coach, who is accused of abruptly ending his work with another player to work with the 24-time Grand Slam champion.
Djokovic added former player and long-time friend Viktor Troicki to his team shortly before the start of his latest campaign at Roland Garros. Troicki had been working with Miomir Kecmanovic, who is currently ranked 48th in the world, for over a year. Speaking to the Serbian website SportKlub, Kecmanovic claimed that Troicki was in Paris, training Djokovic just 24 hours after being informed that he would no longer be coaching him.
“To be honest, that decision confused me, not to say—shocked me! On Sunday, I won a Challenger, on Monday, I was told he was ending our collaboration, and on Wednesday, we were supposed to travel to Paris. He was already at Chatrier on Tuesday afternoon with Novak,” said Kecmanović, who won his opening match at the French Open on Sunday.
“Everything is clear, I don’t need to say much more. I’m very disappointed, but oh well.”
Former world No.1 Djokovic responded to his compatriot’s comments after coming through a roller-coaster opening match in Paris. Taking on Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, the third seed battled back from a set down to win 5-7, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4. It is the first time Djokovic has dropped a set in his opening match at Roland Garros since 2008. He has now won 403 main draw matches at major events.
“We communicated. I haven’t seen him in person. I would congratulate him on his win now, as well as the one at the tournament earlier (the Challenger in Valencia),” Djokovic said in response to Kecmanovic’s comment.
“I contacted him, we talked, and I told him from my perspective what happened and how things are. How he took it and what’s between him and Viktor—I’m not getting into that. That’s all I can say.”
Elaborating further about joining forces with Troicki, the 39-year-old explained that he didn’t want to bring ‘unknown’ people into his team at this stage of his career because he doesn’t have the ‘patience’ to do so.
“We know each other from the court, I’ve played against him, I’ve played doubles with him, we’ve played in the Davis Cup and won it together. He was the captain and coach when we won the gold medal here. We’ve travelled together for so many years. He is definitely one of the closest people I have in my life,” he states.
Due to injury, Djokovic enters this year’s French Open having played just one Tour-level match on clay this season. Against Mpetshi Perricard, he won 79% of his service points, hitting 45 winners against 18 unforced errors.
“This is not the ideal strategy of coming into Roland Garros with one match on clay. That was not part of the plan, but it was a situation that I had to accept with the circumstances of being injured,” he said in his press conference.
“It is what it is. I got myself prepared for Paris and I was always planning to come and try my best, try to get as far as I can in the tournament.
“The body is feeling all right for now.”
Djokovic will play Valentin Royer in the next round.
