“Pressure always on my shoulders,” Novak Djokovic after reaching 7th French Open final

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic celebrates winning his semi final match against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

For the 22-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, his 7th final of the French Open will be no different as he still feels the pressure. The Serbian reached the final after defeating World no. 1 World No.1 Carlos Alcaraz by 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 on Friday.

Djokovic will race for record 23rd major trophy against Norwegian fourth seed Casper Ruud on June 11.

“Pressure is always on my shoulders, so it’s not going to be different,” Djokovic said as cited by atptour.com.

Djokovic played beautiful tennis in Paris against Alcaraz, but the Spaniard who suffered from a cramp in the match had struck back to level the pair’s semi-final at one-set-all. Djokovic clinched a marathon game by focusing on his own game to find victory.

“But it’s part of my sport, part of my life, all that I do. I think that having pressure is a privilege. But it’s a source of motivation, as well. Great motivation to play well and to reach Sunday. Before the tournament, I was saying that of course for me Roland Garros is a Grand Slam, and it’s the most important tournament on this surface. So I was well-prepared so that I would be in this position so that I would be ready for this battle to win this other Grand Slam title,” the 36-year-old said.

Djokovic can move ahead of the Legend Rafael Nadal in respect to the Grand Slam titles if he wins the final of the Roland Garros.

“I hope that I’ll play my best tennis level on Sunday. The only thing I can say now is that I’m very focused. History is always something that’s hovering over me, but I’m very happy to be in this position to write history of this sport, but I’m just thinking about winning the next match,” he added.

When asked about Alcaraz who said after the match that the tension of the match contributed to his cramps, Djokovic said, “I have experienced that several times.”

“Being in one of the greatest tournaments of the world, [and] maybe for the first time in his career he was expected to win. He was maybe not an underdog, chasing the title and trying to win against a favourite. It was probably the other way around. So maybe that affected him. As he said, it probably did,” Djokovic concluded.