Men Are Arriving In Cincinnati Still Thinking About Montreal

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 13th August 2013

Men Are Arriving In Cincinnati Still Thinking About Montreal

epa03821369 Spain's Rafael Nadal (R) shakes hand with Canadian Raonic Milos (L) after their men's final singles match of the Open ATP tennis tournament in Montreal, Canada, 11 August 2013. Nadal won against Milos in the Montreal Masters final. EPA/ANDRE PICHETTE |

Contrition appeared to be the order of the day as the stars of the Rogers Cup in Montreal arrived in Cincinnati for the next leg of the ATP World Tour Masters 1,000 series in the Western and Southern Open.

The more, it seems, Milos Raonic thinks about failing to own up to that controversial net touch, the worse he feels about it. And Novak Djokovic has come clean on what exactly he felt about his father Srdjan’s inflammatory statement that all is not harmonious with both Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Djokovic appears to have been appalled that his father chose a recent interview with the Serbian newspaper Kurir to apparently try and drive a wedge between the world no.1 and two of his biggest rivals.

Srdjan maintained there had been a feud between Federer and his son since a Davis Cup match in 2006 and the Swiss was resentful of Djokovic’s current success. He said: “Federer is perhaps still the best tennis player in history, but as a man he’s the opposite.”

And of Nadal, Djokovic snr. said : “Nadal was his best friend while he was winning. When things changed, they were no longer friends,” Srdjan said. “This is not sport.”

Clearly the observations have caused some discussion in the privacy of the Djokovic family and Novak tried to distance himself from his father’s views when he said: “I’m really sorry that his words have caused so much attention, and also that they might have hurt my colleagues in some way, and with whom I have good and fair relationships.

“But as unfortunate as it sounds, I cannot be held responsible for his deeds and for his words because everybody is entitled to their opinion, even my father, and I love him so much, and respect him.

“He’s helped me so much in my life to arrive where I am but sometimes people come up with their opinions as they like and me, I have to say that I didn’t have any influence on that. And as I said, I cannot be responsible for it.”

In Montreal, Raonic admitted a degree of regret for the incident in his match with Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro that also reflected negatively on umpire Mohamed Lahyani.

The flight time for the 694.5 miles journey from Montreal to Mason, Ohio (the actual site of the Cincinnati tournament may only be one hour and 45 minutes but it was sufficient for Raonic to give more thought to the regrettable incident where he failed to live up to an honor code established on the men’s tour.

“I feel like I made a mistake in the spur of the moment, something, I guess, because I hadn’t been faced with it before,” said Raonic who was criticized by del Potro for failing to admit running into the net while umpire Lahyani’s view, and that of his line judges, were clearly focused on watching the ball,

“I’m disappointed with myself how I dealt with it, and it’s something I learned a lot from,” said the 22 year-old Canadian who yesterday became the first man ever from his nation to enter the ATP World Tour’s top ten.

The main basis of Raonic’s elevation was reaching Sunday’s Montreal final, here he lost to Rafael Nadal, and therefore the win over del Potro was integral. “I really didn’t have the opportunity until really the last two days to think about it that much,” he admitted. “It’s something that I feel sorry about and something I want to apologize to Juan when I see him here.”