Cam Norrie holds talks with Novak Djokovic over feud as Serb branded ‘troublesome’
Cameron Norrie has revealed that his spat with Novak Djokovic has been resolved after the pair held talks following their Italian Open feud final month. The Brit provoked an offended response from Djokovic when he smashed a ball into the again of his opponent’s leg on his solution to a straight-sets defeat by the hands of the Serb, who was later knocked out within the quarter-finals by Holger Rune.
Djokovic appeared to have been irked by the incident and had a lot to say relating to Norrie’s behaviour following the match regardless of the 27-year-old issuing a right away apology on the court docket. The former questioned whether or not he had been hit intentionally by Norrie and criticised his conduct by accusing him of enjoying throughout the letter of the regulation however with out adhering to sure requirements of sportsmanship and professionalism.
“Maybe you could say he didn’t hit me deliberately,” mentioned Djokovic on the time. “I don’t know if he saw me. I mean, you can always see where the player is positioned on the court. It was not so much maybe about that, but it was maybe a combination of things.
“He was doing all the things that we’re allowed. He’s allowed to take a medical timeout, he’s allowed to hit a player, he’s allowed to say ‘come on’ in the face more or less every single point from basically the first game. Those are the things that we players know in the locker room is not fair play, it’s not how we treat each other.”
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Norrie has since confirmed that he and Djokovic are on good phrases once more and shall be seeking to put their temporary feud behind them after holding discussions in non-public, with the pair having initially been comparatively pleasant previous to the Italian Open.
“We are good,” mentioned Norrie in an interview with The Times. “We talked. We are fine now. At the end of the day, he won.”
Norrie went on to replicate on the weather of Djokovic’s recreation that make him such a troublesome opponent to play towards, because the Brit discovered the laborious manner when he was overwhelmed by the 36-year-old in final 12 months’s Wimbledon semi-finals.
“He’s so difficult,” he defined. “You hit a good shot, right on the line, should be a winner, and he is still bringing it back. So you have another chance and you force it, miss the line by a tiny margin and the point is gone.
“He pushes you an increasing number of to the purpose you must hit it completely. It’s robust to not overplay once you really feel like you must be good. That messes together with your focus after which he’s on you. It’s robust however that’s the problem.
“I watched the [French Open] final with Casper [Ruud] the other day and the same thing happened. The other guy is playing well, has his chances, but is drawn into overplaying, overpressing. It’s interesting to see how Djokovic does it, the more games against the top players the more you learn.”