Former world no. 1 Boris Becker issued a clarification on his earlier statement on Novak Djokovic’s injury before the Serb hit back at critics on Saturday by revealing the details of his injury. Djokovic was earlier forced to retire from Australian Open semifinal match against Alexander Zverev after losing the first set, thus sending the German into his third career final.
Djokovic incurred a thigh injury during the opening set of the quarterfinal match against Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday and sought a medical timeout, after which he returned with a heavily strapped upper left thigh. However, the injury seemed to have been of little worry during the rest of the match as he comfortably beat Alcaraz in four sets.
Not many experts were convinced by Djokovic’s act, as the likes of John McEnroe and Andy Roddick questioned how genuine it was. Speaking to Eurosport, Becker, Djokovic’s former coach, too joined the bandwagon as he warned Zverev to be wary of the Serb’s on-court resilience, referring to the injury act.
“Novak has been through it all. No one has played more Grand Slam matches, no one has won more Grand Slams. He really has experienced everything you can experience on the tennis court. Sascha has to stick to his game and show his strengths – his serve, his baseline strokes and his fitness. He mustn’t let himself be put off his game, whatever his opponent does,” he told Eurosport ahead of the semi-final.
Djokovic skipped training for the next two days in the build-up to the semis, where he lost the first set 7-6 in the tie-breaker, before he announced his retirement from the match. A day hit, he hit back at critics with a picture of his medical report and he captioned it: “Thought I’d leave this here for all the sports injury “experts” out there.”
Becker, a two-time Australian Open champion, issued a clarification on his earlier remark as he blamed “wrong translation from German to English.”
He said: “I have never questioned the severity of @DjokerNole injury! Probably someone did wrong translation from German into English… Schatzi is family for me since 2013 !It’s all about the click-bait these days and not about facts! @AustralianOpen @Eurosport_DE.”
