It wasn’t a very surprising end to an amazingly fruitful partnership (six grand slam titles!), after all, not many star coaching relationships last longer than three years, but what is interesting is what is going to happen next with Team Djokovic? Marian Wajda will stay for sure, but will Djokovic want to add influence from some ex-star player or will he try to go on with his tight knit team?
I think this interview with Sky Sports is quite interesting and revealing when it comes to the Becker and Djokovic partnership. Becker talks about increased priorities towards family, which in light of recent “infidelity” rumours (that I mention briefly in this Djokovic Meltdown article), makes a lot of sense.
A few interesting quotes from the Becker interview:
“The last six months have been challenging on many levels,” where then Becker goes on to talk about that after Djokovic accomplished the dream of winning the French Open and holding all Grand Slam titles at one time, he wanted to spend more time with the family.
“People forget that with the job as a tennis player you have to be very selfish.” Becker then goes on to say that this is fine when you’re 19, but not when you’re 28 and have family, as well as other business interests.
“Does that make it easier for the coaching staff? Of course not. Our hands were tied a little bit…” Here Becker talks about the sacrifices in time and effort a player needs to do to maintain and excel his level as a tennis player and how it’s difficult for a guy like Djokovic who has a family and other business commitments, to always give the highest priority to his tennis training.
“I’m sure he is going to re-focus for next year, I’m sure the fact that he lost the number one ranking to Andy Murray is going to hurt him, I know the US Open loss against Stan (Wawrinka) hurt him, and I think that’s maybe what he needed a little bit in a funny way, to realize what it’s like to lose, because he hasn’t been losing for 2,5 years.”
“I’m his number one fan for next year for him to come back and regain his number one position, but he got to go back to work, go back to the office and practice and re-focus on what we made strong in the first place.” Becker then goes on to say that Djokovic didn’t work as hard as he should have during the last six months and he knows that.
What will happen in the Djokovic camp the coming months and will he be ready to take back the number one position in the world? That will be the big question in 2017.
What do you think? Please comment below.
