Serbian player Novak Djokovic expressed his anger at a fan who exclaimed “Out!” in the midst of a point during his quarterfinal match against Taylor Fritz at the US Open on Tuesday night, Sep 5.
Although Djokovic cruised through all the sets with a landslide win, there was a point in the match when he experienced a lapse in concentration and lost his composure.
The incident occurred in the third set of the match. Djokovic had hit the first serve and was in the middle of returning a ball from Fritz when he heard a fan shout “Out!”. Momentarily perplexed, Djokovic thought that the ball had been called long. With the quick realization that this wasn’t the case, Djokovic went scrambling towards the ball to salvage the point. But despite being able to get back on track, Fritz ultimately won the point with a backhand winner.
Novak Djokovic’s reaction to the situation
In a fit of rage, Djokovic immediately turned to his left and shouted angrily at the fan, who happened to be seated near his family and support team. In the post-match conference, he talked about this incident and disclosed that he even asked his friends to talk to the fan who had interrupted him.
“Yes, he did,” Djokovic confirmed when asked whether the fan’s behavior had distracted him.
“He was actually in the box where some of my friends were. I don’t know who the guy was, but yeah, I was pretty annoyed by him at that point. I was communicating with my friends to have a little chat with him.”
Djokovic further stated that fans making noise during a match is a normal part of the sport, especially when it is a tight match or if a player is playing against a home team. He went on to say that most of the time, he doesn’t mind it, but when he’s suddenly under a lot of pressure, that’s when things get different.
“Sometimes you react, but most of the time you don’t,” he added. “I speak for myself. Obviously there is whatever percent of the time you don’t react. People speak, they move around. You’ve got to be ready for that, particularly in the US Open, especially in the night sessions.”
“It just, you know, that’s part of it. It’s part of the sport, and I don’t, you know, mostly I don’t mind it, but in those important moments when you’re all of a sudden under a lot of stress and you’re facing a break point and then all of a sudden everything annoys you and distracts you, so then you react.”
“That’s, again, the heat of the moment and playing on the highest level. I’m actually glad the crowd wants to get into it, because it means that the match is interesting, that they want to be part of it, that they’re having fun. At the end of the day, they pay tickets to come and watch you play, so we try to put on a show and perform for them so they go back home satisfied that they have been here and enjoyed their day.
“Sometimes you might have an interaction with the player, you know, like this guy today, I’m sorry for him, but he was really annoying at that point. And that’s it, you know, it happens.”, Djokovic said.
At the end of the night, Djokovic still won against Fritz with three consecutive wins, 6-1 6-4 6-4. With this feat, he will now advance to the semi-finals where he will face rising tennis star Ben Shelton.
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