At the French Open, Djokovic, Federer and Nadal All Aim to Win

He said his goal was to be at his best for Wimbledon in June, and to get that rush of playing for something important, in front of fans, against the best players in the world.

Then things began to get interesting.

In April, during a promotional interview for a beer sponsor, Nadal said Djokovic was “obsessed” with winning more Grand Slam titles than his rivals.

“It means a lot to him, all of this stuff, like he’s always saying and talking about these records,” Nadal said. “It’s not my approach to my tennis career.”

He insisted that he did not mean it in a negative way, and yet.

Days later, as Djokovic prepared to play the Belgrade Open, he rejected the characterization.

“I never found it hard to say: ‘I want to break that record or reach a certain goal,’” he said.

Whether playing it cool or caring too much, all will be focused on the same thing over the next 14 weeks, competing on red clay at Roland Garros, the grass at Wimbledon, and the hard courts at the United States Open.

For years, Djokovic has been a hero to his homeland and the Serbian diaspora, but, rightly or wrongly, something of a party-crasher to what was once an elite two-way rivalry between Federer and Nadal, and even an occasional tennis villain. Fans are more often against him rather than with him, especially when he plays Nadal or Federer. In the last year alone he defied health safety protocols and put on a tennis exhibition that became a coronavirus superspreader event, and accidentally swatted a ball into the throat of a line judge, earning a disqualification from the U.S. Open.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/30/sports/tennis/french-open-djokovic-federer-nadal.html