Novak Djokovic fumes ‘absolute catastrophe’ as he rages about Italian Open court docket

Novak Djokovic branded the Rome Masters centre court docket an “absolute disaster” throughout his opening-round match towards Tomas Etcheverry. The high seed went down a break early on however was capable of retrieve it. And he complained that there was an excessive amount of clay earlier than the umpire ordered the court docket to be swept within the first set.

Djokovic was enjoying his first match in three weeks, after skipping the Madrid Open as a consequence of an elbow damage. After getting damaged within the opening sport he was ready to attract degree at 3-3.

The high seed gave the impression to be fighting the bounce of the ball on some factors, and as he sat down for the changeover at 4-3 he could possibly be heard labelling the court docket an “absolute disaster”. The umpire then requested for the court docket to be swept to take away a number of the clay, as Djokovic defined the difficulty.

“It seems like there’s a lot of, like too much clay,” he mentioned. “Half a metre in and half a metre out, there’s really a lot of clay.”

“What we heard there was ‘absolute disaster’, I think again that’s in relation to the court,” commentator Pete Odgers informed Amazon Prime. “He doesn’t look happy in between the points but during the rallies, I think he’s playing very well.”

He added: “There’s been so much wind over the last couple of days, probably what has happened – I’m just guessing here – is that they’ve probably decided to put more clay on because the clay keeps getting blown off, and then the wind has died down. It’s not as windy this evening as what it was earlier on today and they’re probably left with too much clay as Djokovic is saying.”