{"id":563934,"date":"2026-05-03T11:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/563934\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:52:14","slug":"novak-djokovic-lashed-out-at-madrid-open-before-skipping-event-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/563934\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic lashed out at Madrid Open before skipping event | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic is missing this year’s Madrid Open after flying into a blind range at last year’s tournament. This time last season, the 24-time Grand Slam winner was struggling for form in the build-up to the French Open<\/a> and Wimbledon.<\/a><\/p>\n

He was hoping for a strong showing in Madrid but clearly wasn’t happy with his game. During a practice session in the Spanish capital, Djokovic<\/a> was left fuming with a series of his shots<\/a> and was captured on camera uttering: “F*** this sport, f*** tennis, f*** everything.” Tennis fans found the funny side of the X-rated rant, with many suggesting that Andy Murray’s<\/a> mannerisms may have been rubbing off on him. Djokovic was working with Murray at the time as he built up to the upcoming Slams.<\/p>\n

Djokovic openly admitted his game wasn’t where he wanted it to be, which may have led to his frustration boiling over. He said at the time: “The priority is obviously trying to take the level of tennis that currently is maybe not where we want it to be to the higher level so that I can peak at the French Open. That’s where I really want to play my best tennis, Roland Garros and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

“Of course, we’re in Madrid, we came in early. We’re putting in a lot of hours in the court and in the gym, trying to perfect the body and the game and basically every aspect of my game to be a few per cent better than it was in the previous weeks.<\/p>\n

“If I can reach that desired level in this tournament, that would be amazing. I don’t have really high expectations and I really hope I can get through the first hurdle and then we’ll take it from there.”<\/p>\n

But the frustration continued for the Serb as he suffered an early exit to Italian Matteo Arnaldi in straight sets. He went on to lose to Jannik Sinner<\/a> in the semi-finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. At 38, is still striving for a record-extending 25th Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n

“It was not his initiative or my initiative. It was both of us coming together and just saying, ‘You know, I think we should stop here.’ That’s what it was.”<\/p>\n

There has been no repeat of his Madrid meltdown after Djokovic, along with Carlos Alcaraz,<\/a> pulled out of the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic is missing this year’s Madrid Open after flying into a blind range at last year’s tournament.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[6764,7881,40616,6766,101,118,12700,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-563934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-andy-murray","tag-grand-slam","tag-madrid-open","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-section","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563934","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=563934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}