Novak Djokovic revealed how he is feeling physically and also apologised for almost hitting a ball girl after an incident-packed third round win at the 2026 Australian Open.<\/p>\n
The 10-time Australian Open<\/a> champion has progressed to the last 16 without dropping a set after he downed 75th-ranked Botic van de Zandschulp 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(7-4) on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n In the third set against his Dutch opponent, Djokovic<\/a> suffered an injury scare as he fell to the court after an awkward movement involving his ankle when he tried to change direction.<\/p>\n In his on-court interview, Djokovic explained to Jim Courier that the medical timeout he took was not related to his fall.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, a few points before I almost twisted my ankle I asked for the physio, so I was planning to see him for my blisters,\u201d the 38-year-old Serbian said.<\/p>\n \u201cThen thankfully I managed to have a good fall if you can say so and kind of protect myself. Yeah, things could have been very ugly in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic \u2018very lucky\u2019 to escape Australian Open disqualification for \u2018violent gesture\u2019 \u2013 tennis great<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n John McEnroe gets honest on Novak Djokovic\u2019s popularity with fans and fellow players<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked how his body felt, the world No 4 said: \u201c[I feel] really good. It\u2019s been a great start to the tournament. Obviously things can change.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not getting ahead of myself, last year I learned the lesson, got too excited too early, in some of the Grand Slams, playing really well and getting to the semis, and then getting injured in three out of the four.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still trying to give these young guys a push for their money. I\u2019m still around, I\u2019m hanging in there.<\/p>\n \u201c[Carlos] Alcaraz and [Jannik] Sinner are the two best players in the world, they\u2019re playing on a different level to all of us right now.<\/p>\n \u201cBut when you enter the court and the ball rolls, you always have a chance. Particularly here, the court which has given me the most in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n Late in the second set, Djokovic came close to hitting a ball girl at the side of the net with a ball he struck in frustration after a point.<\/p>\n In his press conference, Djokovic was asked if he felt fortunate he did not hit the ball girl, which would have likely resulted in disqualification.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I apologise for that,\u201d Djokovic said. \u201cYeah, that was not necessary. In the heat of the moment I\u2026 yeah, I was lucky there. And I\u2019m sorry for causing any distress to the ball kid or anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic, who is chasing a record-extending 25th Grand Slam title and his first since the 2023 US Open, will face 16th seed Jakub Mensik in the fourth round.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Jannik Sinner was \u2018absolutely cooked\u2019 and \u2018going home\u2019 without Australian Open heat interruption<\/a> The post Novak Djokovic apologises after avoiding Australian Open disqualification and gives injury update<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic revealed how he is feeling physically and also apologised for almost hitting a ball girl after an incident-packed third round win at the 2026 Australian Open. The 10-time Australian Open champion has progressed to the last 16 without dropping a set after he downed 75th-ranked Botic van de Zandschulp 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(7-4) on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Australian Open News<\/h2>\n
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