Paris: Defending French Open champion Novak Djokovic has been accused of tanking the last set of his quarter-final against Dominic Thiem by tennis great John McEnroe.
Commenting on the match, McEnroe said he was absolutely baffled by what he saw and was not impressed at all by Djokovic’s performance.
Tanking is the tennis term when players deliberately choose not to focus energy or attention on a specific set.
“It looks right now as if Djokovic doesn’t want to be on the court. This is tank city. I’m very surprised — especially with the way how it ended. That last set was really strange,” McEnroe said.
Djokovic squandered two set points in the opening set. The 23-year-old Thiem won 7-6(5), 6-3, 6-0.
His error-strewn display shocked Greg Rusedski too, who was appearing in the Eurosport studio.
He said: “When have you seen Djokovic lose 0-6 in a Grand Slam quarter-final? There are question marks for me over where’s Novak — especially after that performance.”
Djokovic has not been at his best for a while now, winning just two titles in the last 12 months, and Wednesday’s loss against Thiem means that the Serb will next week crash out of the top two of men’s tennis rankings for the first time in the last five-and-half years.
What makes this defeat more appalling is the fact that the 30-year-old had a perfect record of 5-0 against the sixth seeded Austrian Thiem before this match.
The third set also marked the first time since the first round of the 2005 US Open that Djokovic suffered a bagel set (a set where a player is not able to win even a single point) at a slam and even then he came back to beat Gael Monfils in five sets.
Double French Open champion Jim Courier claimed Djokovic’s decision to work with so-called ‘guru’ Pepe Imaz was partly to blame for his shock defeat at Roland Garros.
Djokovic recently split with his long-term coaching team and worked with former great Andre Agassi in the first week in Paris.
“The problem when one of the people on your team is all about love and peace and has been part of the camp for over a year, it’s not something that you can fall back on when you are pushed into a hole,” American Courier, working for British broadcaster ITV, said.
“Novak showed no fight and maybe it was partly down to the windy conditions. He despises playing in the wind. He really seemed to accept the outcome well before it was conclusive.” Courier said must seek out Agassi to try and rediscover the spark that appears to be missing.
“Andre knows how to broach this type of thing and will ask the right questions to see how Novak can avoid this kind of thing going forward,” Courier said.
“But there are questions remaining about Novak. Since Wimbledon last year there have been so many question marks about what’s going on, on and off the court.” Imaz, a former Spanish player, has been described as a “spiritual guru” who uses the philosophy “peace and love” at his tennis academy. Djokovic linked up with him last year.
— Agencies
