Novak Djokovic (SRB) and his team including coach Goran Ivanisevic (CRO), Edoardo Artaldi, and Ulises Badio holding the Gentlemen's Singles Trophy on the players lawn after the final at The Championships 2021. Held at The All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon. Day 13 Sunday 11/07/2021. Credit: AELTC/Bob Martin
Loud outbursts of frustration on court from Novak Djokovic were not a problem for ex-coach Goran Ivanisevic, who was sacked by the volatile Serb only days ago in a mass shakeup of his team.
“On court during a match, everything was allowed,” the Croat who won Wimbledon in 2001 said after leaving the player he had coached to a dozen Grand Slam titles.
“That never even bothered me, his shouting – half of it I couldn’t even hear,
“I mean those are big courts, there’s a lot noise…” he told Serb outlet SportKlub.
Ivanisevic was the latest in a string of Djokovic team departures over the past half year as the unsettled world No. 1 puzzles through a drop in form.
Djokovic has not won a title this season but is expected to resurface after a month-long absence to compete in next week’s Monte Carlo Masters.
Ivanisevic said he began to feel signs of discontent in his coaching relationship with Djokovic as early as last summer.
“I first noticed the feeling last year in America. I won’t say as far back as Wimbledon.
“We then went to America, and it goes without saying, an incredible run there – that finals match against Alcaraz in Cincinnati, winning the US Open; however, that’s when I really began to feel that the end was near.”
Ivanisevic added: “It (the split) was only a question of whether that would be at the end of the year, or at some point in this year.
“There is no right or wrong moment, there is only that moment when it happens, when two people agree it is time.”
The larger-than-life coach said that both he and Djokovic were growing stale with each other.
“There was that gradual fatigue building up in me, in him, but people make out like our relationship and communication was particularly turbulent, which just isn’t true.
“Novak is just like that, it was the same with (former coach Boris) Becker, and with (former coach) Marian (Vadja); that’s just simply how he functions.”
Main photo:Novak Djokovic with Goran Ivanisevic and his team after winning Wimbledon – by Bob Martin/AELTC
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