Tennis news - Djokovic offers respect to beaten Federer for playing semi-final when ‘obviously hurt’

Updated 30/01/2020 at 15:16 GMT

Novak Djokovic has said Roger Federer should be given respect for playing Thursday’s semi-final when clearly carrying an injury.

Nole Djokovic, Roger Federer, Wimbledon, Getty Images

Image credit: Getty Images

The 38-year-old Federer went for a medical timeout after losing the first set and appeared to lack his usual range of movement – perhaps unsurprisingly given his five-set epics in both the third round and quarter-final.

Djokovic: 'Respect' to Federer for playing

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And speaking on court with Jim Courier after his match, Djokovic credited his opponent for even coming out to play the match:

Respect to Roger for coming out tonight. He was obviously hurt and wasn’t at his best or even close to his best in terms of movement, and respect for coming out and trying his best all the way through.

Federer raced into a 4-1 lead in the first set before Djokovic switched on, and from that point onwards it was the Serb who dominated the match.

Highlights: Djokovic cruises past subdued Federer

And the defending Australian Open champion says that the start of the match was partly down to his incorrect focus on Federer’s injury status.

"It was probably not exactly the right mindset from my side at the beginning of the match," Djokovic said.

It was kind of looking more at how he’s moving and what he’s doing rather than executing my shots in the right way. It resulted in a 1-4 down and 0-40 lead for him.

"I managed to kind of dig my way back in the first set," continued Djokovic. "It was very important to win that first set. Mentally I kind of relaxed a little bit and could swing through the ball a bit more."

Djokovic backed those comments up in his interview with Eurosport in the bowels of the Rod Laver Arena, explaining that his tactics and overthinking were the cause of such a sluggish start to the match.

"Sometimes less thinking is better," he said. "I was overthinking at the beginning, trying to strategise too much in the middle of the point.

You don’t really have time to think about various options, you have to follow automatically the gut-feeling about where you want to go and stick to that.

"I wasn’t doing that in the beginning – that’s why he was 1-4 and 0-40 up.

"I was fortunate to serve well, that got me out of trouble many times tonight, and I’ll take that as the best shot in my game tonight."

Djokovic will face the winner of Friday’s second semi-final, which sees Dominic Thiem take on Alexander Zverev.

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