{"id":397991,"date":"2026-01-30T03:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/397991\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T03:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:11:09","slug":"novak-djokovic-hits-back-at-australian-open-icon-after-unwanted-advice-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/397991\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic hits back at Australian Open icon after unwanted advice | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic doesn’t think he needs advice from Mats Wilander on how he talks about Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a>. International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee, Wilander, has said Djokovic<\/a> should not speak so often that Alcaraz and Sinner are better than him.<\/p>\n

Wilander reckons the 10-time Australian Open<\/a> champion does so to take the pressure off himself going into matches against the pair. Djokovic, however, respectfully disagrees with the seven-time Grand Slam champion. In that haul, Wilander won three times in Melbourne during the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Djokovic said: “I respect Mats a lot, but I don’t think I need his advice.” The Djokovic reply was much briefer than the comments from Wilander that the 24-time major winner responded to.<\/p>\n

Wilander said: “It surprises me that he so often says that Alcaraz and Sinner are the best in the world and that they are so much better than him. Whether that’s true or not, even if it’s kind of him, he shouldn’t say that.<\/p>\n

“He’s probably trying to take the pressure off himself and make people forget that he’s still a contender for the biggest things. I don’t think it’s a strategy, though, it’s simply his philosophy. He sees the world clearly; with him, everything is black or white.”<\/p>\n

The comments Wilander critiqued were made by Djokovic after reaching the semi-final, when he said of Alcaraz and Sinner: “Are they better right now than me, and all the other guys? Yes, they are. The quality and the level is amazing. It’s great. It’s phenomenal.<\/p>\n

“But does that mean that I walk out with a white flag? No. I’m going to fight until the last shot, until the last point, and do my very best to challenge them.”<\/p>\n

Djokovic also said: “I have tremendous respect for what Jannik and Carlos are doing and what they will do for the next 10 to 15, 20 years… God knows how many years they’re going to play, they’re so young.<\/p>\n

“This is a natural cycle in sports. You’re going to have another two superstars [and] maybe have another third guy – who I’m going to cheer for – because I’ve always been the third guy at the beginning.<\/p>\n

“But it’s good for our sport. I think these kinds of rivalries and the contrast of the personalities and the styles of play are very good for tennis.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic doesn’t think he needs advice from Mats Wilander on how he talks about Carlos Alcaraz and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[12701,21399,870,811,7882,6766,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-397991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-atp-tour","tag-australian-open","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-mats-wilander","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397991","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=397991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}