Opportunities and Pressure on Novak Djokovic

Written by: Staff on 8th June 2012

Opportunities and Pressure on Novak Djokovic

epa03255202 Novak Djokovic of Serbia returns to Roger Federer of Switzerland during their semi final match for the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 08 June 2012. EPA/YOAN VALAT |

Fans can feel for No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who is looking to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win four consecutive majors.

Djokovic will face Roger Federer in the semifinals, who had two opportunities to win four straight majors in 2006 and 2007, but was stopped both times in Paris by now six-time champ Rafael Nadal. The Spaniard himself had a chance to pull off the feat at the 2011 Australian Open, but became injured and the man who will face him in the 2012 French semis, David Ferrer, stopped him in the quarters at Melbourne.

Last year Federer stopped Djokovic’s 43- match run on clay in the French semis. But the Serbian has beaten the Swiss in five of their past six meetings.

“Both guys have not really gotten their total ‘A’ game, going,” said John McEnroe, noting that Djokovic needed five sets to win his last two previous rounds and that Federer needed five to best Juan Martin Del Potro. “It’s difficult to say what’s going to happen if one or both of these guys could and may step it up. Everyone expected this match. When it happens, maybe they can sort of find their best level.

“There is no reason to believe that Roger won’t play better. He has to play better if he’s going to win. Novak, I think, is really feeling the pressure like he did last year. It’s impossible not to feel that because he’s so close. I guess Roger was close. I believe Rafa was in the same position They could speak of that better than I could. I was never at the holding three in a row and going for that fourth one. But I know that’s gotta start to get to you a little bit. It did obviously when he played [Andreas] Seppi. It was like he really was struggling. Even against Jo [Tsonga] he wasn’t as sharp as we’ve seen him. That’s not unexpected. Now that he’s gotten here, I expect him to play better. Even though he lost to Roger here last year, it’s going to be Roger that’s going to have to play even quite a bit better in order to win. But then again, both of them are going to have to play even better if they want to win the final.”

Topics: 10sBalls.ocm, djokovic, Juan Martin Del Potro, Nole, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer