Novak Djokovic on Sunday described his shock third-round elimination from the Internazionali BNL d’Italia by Alejandro Tabilo as “concerning,” two days after he was hit on the head by a bottle, which he said has caused nausea and dizzy spells.
Djokovic’s bid for a record-extending 41st Masters 1000 title was ended in just more than an hour by Chilean Tabilo, who is ranked 32nd in the world and claimed his first win over a top-10 opponent, 6-2, 6-3.
The 24-time Grand Slam winner said that his subdued performance on a court where he has won six titles might have been due to the blow suffered while greeting fans on Friday night.
Photo: AFP
He had initially laughed off being accidentally struck on the head by a hard water bottle following his straightforward second-round win over Corentin Moutet, by wearing a cycling crash helmet to training on Saturday morning.
“I don’t know, to be honest. I have to check that. Training was different. I was going for kind of easy training yesterday. I didn’t feel anything, but I also didn’t feel the same,” Djokovic told reporters. “Today under high stress, it was quite bad — not in terms of pain, but in terms of this balance. Just no coordination. Completely different player from what it was two nights ago.”
Djokovic also said that he would have scans to “see what’s going on” before the French Open in Paris.
The last time Djokovic got to Roland Garros without a title to his name that season was in 2018, when his first honor of the campaign came at Wimbledon.
With the French Open, where his is the defending champion, to start in two weeks, Djokovic said that “everything needs to be better in order for me to have at least a chance to win” a 25th Grand Slam.
“The way I felt on the court today was just completely like a different player entered into my shoes,” he added. “It’s a bit concerning.”
Djokovic’s early elimination means that the last major men’s tournament before Roland Garros is wide open, with third seed Alexander Zverev beating home hope Luciano Darderi, ranked 54th in the world, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2.
Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka beat Dayana Yastremska, 6-4, 6-2 to set up a clash in the next round with Elina Svitolina for the first time since their handshake row at last year’s French Open. Svitolina, a two-time winner at the Foro Italico, comfortably beat Anna Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-3.
Svitolina accused Belarusian Sabalenka of inflaming tensions surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war for waiting at the net for a handshake after beating Ukrainian Svitolina in the Roland Garros quarter-finals last year.
Svitolina had already said that she was not going to offer one, as all Ukrainian players refused to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian rivals in protest at the ongoing war.
Earlier, fifth seed Maria Sakkari lined up a probable last-16 clash with Victoria Azarenka, who beat 80th-ranked Egyptian Mayar Sherif 6-2, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3.
In women’s doubles, top seeds Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Elise Mertens of Belgium beat Sofia Kenin and Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US 6-4, 4-6, 11-9 in the round-of-16.
Meanwhile, ninth seeds Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan and Veronika Kudermetova of Russia gifted China’s Wang Xinyu and Zheng Saisai a walkover.
Additional reporting by staff writer
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
The Major League Baseball World Series trophy is headed to Los Angeles, but the party is extending all the way to Japan. People milled around local train stations yesterday morning in Tokyo as newspaper extras were ready to roll off the presses, proclaiming Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as world champions along with their Dodgers teammates after a stirring Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees. The 30-year-old is a national hero in Japan whose face adorns billboards and TV adverts all over the country. Ohtani this year became the first player in history to hit 50 home runs and
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
WORLD SERIES: ‘The individuals that were involved in that last night was a very small segment of the east Los Angeles community,’ the Los Angeles county sheriff said Rowdy crowds took to the streets of Los Angeles after the LA Dodgers won the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series, setting a city bus on fire, breaking into stores and lighting fireworks. A dozen arrests were reported by police on Thursday, but officials said that most fans celebrated peacefully. Video showed revelers throwing objects at police in downtown LA as sirens blared and officers told them to leave the area on Wednesday night after the Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the MLB World Series at Giants Stadium in New York. Another video showed someone standing atop
RSS