The 2025 season is underway. The United Cup has been played for a few days, where Spain bid farewell after losing to Kazakhstan and Greece, but The main course comes this Tuesday, when Novak Djokovic reappears.
More than two and a half months after his last official match, the final of the Shanghai Masters 1000 which he lost to Jannik Sinner on October 13, The Serbian returned to competition for the Brisbane tournament.
He will debut against a local player, Rinky Hijikata (23 years old and number 73), whom he has not faced until now. This is his debut in a season he will face with the highest ambitions in the face of the push of the new kings of tennis, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
“I plan to play more tournaments than last seasonso, hopefully, the level will also increase and, as a consequence, I will be able to win some tournaments and rise in the ranking” he declared in his appearance before the press.
Djokovic took a 2024 that he described as “interesting, where my main goal and priority was to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, and I achieved it.”
Undoubtedly, the most successful player in the history of tennis faced a huge challenge, which has decided to strengthen his team with Andy Murray, who will act as coachtemporarily, at the beginning of the season.
“Being on the same side of the network was great to change a little bit, because he became one of my biggest rivals. It is, in a way, strange for me to share all these kinds of ideas about how I feel on the court, some of the secrets that I go through, what I think, how I see my game, with someone who is one of my greatest rivals, but I am very happy and grateful that he agreed to work with me, and in Australia… he is very meticulous, dedicated and professional.“said Djokovic, who also wanted to give his opinion on how the tennis authorities handled the latest high-profile cases of positive doping results, like that of Jannik Sinner.
“Kyrgios is right about the transparency and inconsistency of protocols and comparisons between cases. I don’t question whether the banned substance was intentional or not. I believe in clean sport, I believe that the player will do everything to play fair. I’ve known Jannik since he was a kid, so he didn’t strike me as someone who would do something like that, but I was really disappointed, like most of the other players, to see that we were kept in the dark. five months since he received that news. This is not a good image for our sport” he whined.
Doubles debut with Kyrgios
Kyrgios will join him in the doubles draw, where they will debut this Monday against Austrian Alexander Erler and German Andreas Mies. “We texted about it. This year we had already talked at Wimbledon about playing together when Nick returned to the circuit. We have our first opportunity right away in the first week of the season and it’s going to be fun” he explained a few days ago.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Robert Maynard, and I am a passionate journalist with experience in sports writing. For the last few years, I have been writing for Today Times Live. My main focus has been on sports-related stories and features. With my strong background in journalism and extensive knowledge of the industry, I am able to provide readers with well-crafted pieces that are both informative and engaging.
