{"id":205308,"date":"2025-10-17T00:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T00:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/205308\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T00:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T00:06:09","slug":"novak-djokovic-told-he-needs-to-start-sprinting-more-in-training-as-recent-issue-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/205308\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic told he needs to start sprinting more in training as recent issue identified"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic will relax this week and try to claim success in the Six Kings Slam, which is being played in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Last week, Djokovic hailed Valentin Vacherot<\/a> after he surprisingly knocked him out of the Shanghai Masters to leave him without a big win this year. <\/p>\n

Following his defeat to Vacherot who ended up winning the title in Shanghai, a number of pundits have started to have their say on the 38-year-old. <\/p>\n

Boris Becker sent Djokovic a message<\/a> after his latest defeat, whilst Rennae Stubbs also made a claim<\/a> about the 24-time Grand Slam champion. <\/p>\n

Now, a former US Open<\/a> semifinalist has had his say on what he thinks Djokovic needs to do if he\u2019s to return to the tour next year.<\/p>\n

\"NovakPhoto by Lintao Zhang\/Getty ImagesRobbie Koenig makes Novak Djokovic claim<\/p>\n

The Serbian powerhouse is still one of the players that the paying spectators want to see, and his drive to win Grand Slam number 25 hasn\u2019t deterred.<\/p>\n

Djokovic perhaps needs a little bit of luck when it comes to winning another Grand Slam, with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz sharing the last eight<\/a> between them. <\/p>\n

Koenig thinks that although Djokovic is still supremely talented, he needs to work on something in particular during the off-season. <\/p>\n

He said on the Inside In podcast: \u201cIt\u2019s still remarkable what he\u2019s able to do. I still love watching him play, standing courtside just watching him warm up. I\u2019m still gobsmacked at what I see.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest takeaway is, I wonder exactly how much cardio work he\u2019s been doing? I said it the whole year, even when I saw him playing in Australia, I just get the feeling, and this is me guessing, I don\u2019t know, but is he more concerned about keeping the body healthy and not working quite so much on the cardio side, is he neglecting that a little bit because he wants to stay injury free?<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as he starts tournaments injury-free, with a lesser lung capacity, there\u2019s a sense that he thinks he can play himself in a little bit and I think we\u2019ve seen a bit of that historically, but I think this year he\u2019s been found short physically, that\u2019s my eye test when I see him even after a couple of games, you can see how heavily he\u2019s breathing and I wonder if he\u2019s not been pushing the cardio as much as other seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the only fine-tuning I can think to give him. I don\u2019t know if there is anything else in the background, but if I were going to give him a fix in the off-season, it would be a few more sprints, a bit longer on the bike.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Jannik Sinner said about playing Novak Djokovic at Six Kings Slam<\/p>\n

Last night, Jannik Sinner defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Six Kings Slam<\/a> to set up a mouthwatering match with Djokovic in the semifinal. <\/p>\n

Although the competition taking place in Saudi Arabia is nothing more than an exhibition, the prize money on offer should make the matches pretty good as the tournament progresses. <\/p>\n

Sinner has enjoyed some good battles with Djokovic in the past and it\u2019s clear that he\u2019s looking forward to locking horns once again with the player he has a lot of respect for. <\/p>\n

He said in his on-court interview after beating Tsitsipas: \u201cWe all hope it\u2019s a good match. This is all we hope for. We know each other very well\u2026 we\u2019ve played many, many times. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to share the court again with Novak. Especially here in front of you guys. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll just try to play the best possible tennis we can. We\u2019ll just see how it goes. Mostly, we are here to enjoy. To bring tennis here. All we hope is that you guys enjoy. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic head-to-head vs Jannik Sinner<\/p>\n

These players have competed on 10 occasions, with Sinner winning the rivalry six matches to four. <\/p>\n

2025 \u2013 Sinner beat Djokovic \u2013 Wimbledon2025 \u2013 Sinner beat Djokovic \u2013 French Open2024 \u2013 Sinner beat Djokovic \u2013 Shanghai Masters2024 \u2013 Sinner beat Djokovic \u2013 Australian Open2023 \u2013 Sinner beat Djokovic \u2013 Davis Cup2023 \u2013 Djokovic beat Sinner \u2013 ATP Finals2023 \u2013 Sinner beat Djokovic \u2013 ATP Finals2023 \u2013 Djokovic beat Sinner \u2013 Wimbledon 2022 \u2013 Djokovic beat Sinner \u2013 Wimbledon 2022 \u2013 Djokovic beat Sinner \u2013 Monte-Carlo Masters<\/p>\n

In recent times, it\u2019s been Sinner getting the edge over Djokovic and perhaps the Serbian has it all to do to start competing with the Italian player once again. <\/p>\n

Largely, the matches are close, however, and hopefully, the pair can serve up another classic when they meet at the Six Kings Slam this week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Novak Djokovic will relax this week and try to claim success in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[1308,6766,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-205308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-novak-djokovic","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}