Novak Djokovic Shares A Kiss With Wife Jelena

He’s back in training with his former coach as he looks to get his career back on track following a winless, injury plagued 12-months.

But while Novak Djokovic was without Marian Vajda on Monday afternoon, he had equally familiar but rather more intimate company in the form of doting wife Jelena. The Serbian tennis player, 30, shared a kiss with his wife of four-years during an appearance in Marbella, where he is currently training following his reunion with Vajda.
Sporting a blue hooded top, Novak looked relaxed while sharing a moment with Jelena during their latest outing in the Spanish resort town.
Read more »

BNP Paribas Open has secured Djokovics World No.1 Status

Now that Novak Djokovic has become the winner of the BNP Paribas Open, he can feel a little secured about his World no. 1 status.

He has 1310-point advantage over the second ranked Federer and it seems almost impossible for the Swiss maestro to overcome that by the end of the ongoing season.

Coming into this week, Djokovic’s position at the top of the rankings was well and truly in danger. If he had been knocked out early from Paris and Federer had gone on to lift the trophy, the Serb would have slipped down to no. 2, but, it wasn’t to be.

It actually happened the other way around.  It’s Federer who lost it in the Round of 8, while, Djokovic, on the other hand, won the title for the second consecutive time in the French capital to put himself forward as the hot favourite for the season ending tournament i.e. the tour Finals.

The BNP Paribas Masters was the first competition which Djokovic was taking part in after becoming father.

He had not been in the scene for a few weeks as he was there with his better half at home. So, it was believed that because of being short of practice, he might struggle a little bit to start with in Paris. But, he was at his fluent best straightaway and his dominance over the other players can be understood by the fact that nobody was able to win a set against him during the whole tournament.

The records absolutely tumble for Djokovic during the final match yesterday. By winning that match, he took his total victory count on the tour to 600 and also, took his Masters Title count to 20. These are fantastic numbers for somebody who is still only 26 years of age.

Federer Future In Discussion

There have been a lot of discussions happening about Roger Federer’s future these days especially after the defeat of the Swiss legend in the final of the Wimbledon Championships.

While, some people have started to write him off, the others think that he is still good enough to add one or two titles to his Grand Slam tally.

The people who are backing Federer to be able to achieve glory again at the Grand Slam level have their reasons to do so.

Although Federer has not won too many titles this season, he has been playing far better than how he had played last season.

Federer has been to the title round of as many as 6 tournaments so far in 2014 and it clearly shows that he’s been consistent. This consistency was not there in his game in 2013. Not only was he getting beaten by the top players last year, he was suffering defeats against the lower ranked guys as well.

This year, at least, Federer has not been the victim of horrible upsets. Secondly, most of his defeats of late have been narrow ones. In the Wimbledon final too, he wasn’t outplayed by Djokovic. He had pushed the Serbian to the limits and had things gone slightly in his favour during the dying moments of the match, he would probably have pulled that match off.

So, Federer’s fans have all the reasons to keep their belief in him, but, it’s also true that with Nadal and Djokovic around and that too at their peak, it would take a hell of an effort from the Swiss maestro to lift another slam trophy.

There would be many eyes on Federer at Flushing Meadows towards the end of the ongoing season.

Cash Reckons Murray Has Less Desire To Compete

Pat Cash, the Aussie who had lifted the singles trophy at All England Club back in 1987, has said that Andy Murray’s desire to achieve success at the top level is not as strong these days as it was a couple of years back and that’s the reason why his performances have been continuously going down.

According to Cash, after creating history by becoming Wimbledon champion last year, Murray got a little complacent and that complacency is still there. He has just not been able to motivate himself enough after that glory.

Four Grand Slam tournaments have taken place so far since the 2013 Wimbledon Championships and Murray has participated in all of them, but, in neither of those tournaments, he has made it to the title round.

He had qualified for the semis in the French Open of this year, but, apart from that, he has been mostly suffering early exits from the slams of late.

Speaking in a programme about the deterioration in Murray’s game in the last few months, Cash said, “I have noticed that after the last year’s Wimbledon, Andy has not been playing with the same kind of intensity and it’s something that can happen to a sportsman. After achieving something spectacular, like the Wimbledon in Andy’s case, people often start struggling to get motivated to achieve more.”

“I feel for Andy to be honest. I have been in the similar sort of situation. After winning the Wimbledon, I got knocked early the following year and the guy who defeated me was a quality player i.e. Boris Becker, but, still, I was embarrassed.”

That Wimbledon championship of 1987 was the only Grand Slam that Cash won in his career. He retired from professional tennis in 1997 at the age of 32.

Serena gets ousted from French Open 2014 in the first round

Losing before the fourth round is a setback for Serena Williams as she was coming with a lot of confidence. It was the biggest upset in the French Open 2014. The player who defeated her is Garbine Murguza, the 35^th seeded player.

Garbine Murguza is from Spain who defeated Serena Williams. Early exit of Serena Williams came as the biggest hock but in the past she has had suffered loss in the first round in the same grand slam in 2012. One can say it was a repeat performance. Serena being the strongest among the female players in tennis with her aggressive serve, attacking play, strong forehand and backhand hardly suffers such upset but it was just not her day and she looked fidgety.

It was Garbine Murguza all the way who literally tamed Serena in just 64 minutes taking two sets in quick succession with a 6-2, 6-2 score. Serena proved incompatible in front of an exuberant display of tennis from a lesser renowned player. Similarly Serena’s sister Venus Williams also suffered defeat at an early stage of French Open 2014 which was unpredictable.

Although Serena Williams the world number one has two Rolland Garros titles under her name- one when she defeated her own sister Venus Williams and the other in which she defeated Maria Sharapova. Her Wimbledon prospect now looks shaky unless she works hard and turns things around. Throughout the course of the match she seemed sloppy and sluggish, was not able to move as confidently as she does on the clay court. With 28 unforced errors her performance was totally dismal. Her ousting seemed eminent but she took composure of herself and accepted defeat gracefully. But disappointment was reflected from her face. It was very unlike Serena Williams.

NOVAK NOT CONCERNED

Novak Djokovic is not concerned about the way his season has started. He has the belief that he is capable enough to pull things back and make this season a fantastic one for him.

Djokovic who is the second ranked player in the world at the moment had been winning the Australian Open since the last three seasons and he was the hot favourite to do that once again this season, but, he couldn’t do so as he lost to Stanislas Wawrinka in the quarter finals.

According to the 26 years old Serbian player, it would have been wonderful to win the Australian Open for the 4^th time successively, but, not winning there has not got him demoralized at all. He is up for the upcoming challenges.

Talking to the reporters yesterday, Djokovic said, “There is no doubt about the fact that when you win a tournament early on in the season, it gives you a lot of confidence and that reflects in the way you play in the following events. So, I would have liked to have that momentum again, but, still, I am quite confident.”

“When the results don’t go your way, it’s important to put in hard yards and keep believing and that’s what I am trying to do. Hopefully, the coming weeks will be great for me.”

This is probably Djokovic’s worst start to the season in the recent times. But, one must also consider the fact that he has suffered his two defeats this year against two top quality players.

Also, neither of those defeats were the comprehensive ones. If the Serb had not lost points during key moments, he might have won both those matches. So, it can’t be said that he has been in poor form.