Lorenzo Musetti has expressed his desire to exact \u201crevenge\u201d on Novak Djokovic and asserted that he intends to push the 38-year-old Serb\u00a0\u201cto his maximum\u201d ahead of the pair\u2019s Australian Open showdown.<\/p>\n
Musetti<\/a> and Djokovic<\/a> will face off in the quarter-finals of the\u00a0Australian Open<\/a> on Wednesday in what will be their 11th encounter.<\/p>\n Djokovic leads the head-to-head 9-1 having won the last six meetings since Musetti earned his lone victory at the 2023 Monte Carlo Masters.<\/p>\n World No 5 Musetti defeated ninth-ranked Taylor Fritz 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 in the last 16 in Melbourne on Monday.<\/p>\n Djokovic, who is ranked fourth, received a walkover to the quarter-finals as his fourth round opponent Jakub Mensik withdrew due to injury.<\/p>\n Following his triumph over Fritz, Musetti looked ahead to his match against the 24-time Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying against Novak is always challenging, especially here, where he has won many times,\u201d said the Italian.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it will be a tough match, for sure. Of course, he\u2019s feeling good. He hasn\u2019t lost a set.<\/p>\n Australian Open: Lorenzo Musetti opens up about \u2018real life knocks\u2019 affecting his team<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n How much time has Novak Djokovic spent on court after walkover into quarter-final?<\/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 \u201cHe had the chance to rest for a few days. I think at this age, I think he was happy about it, of course, to try to be well-prepared and well-relaxed for this match.<\/p>\n \u201cBut of course, we know each other pretty well because we played a lot. Just won once against him.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully, I\u2019ll take my revenge, because last time in Athens we were really, really close. I feel like I have another chance now.\u201d<\/p>\n The 23-year-old also addressed what makes Djokovic such a difficult opponent.<\/p>\n \u201cOne for sure, facing his character, his status as a player and as a champion,\u201d Musetti said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe second one, the way he turns around sometimes difficult situations, raising his level, never escaping from a match. Those are the two things I guess that always Novak does.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the thought that I have and the mentality that I have to put on the court in the next match against Nole is probably that one, trying to go for winning the match and not playing the match. I feel ready to try to push him to his maximum.\u201d<\/p>\n Musetti is through to the Australian Open quarter-finals for the first time, while this is the 16th time Djokovic has reached the last eight at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Novak Djokovic\u2019s Australian Open near miss was \u2018worse\u2019 than infamous disqualification<\/a> The post Lorenzo Musetti sends \u2018revenge\u2019 message to Novak Djokovic before Australian Open showdown<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lorenzo Musetti has expressed his desire to exact \u201crevenge\u201d on Novak Djokovic and asserted that he intends to push the 38-year-old Serb\u00a0\u201cto his maximum\u201d ahead of the pair\u2019s Australian Open showdown. Musetti and Djokovic will face off in the quarter-finals of the\u00a0Australian Open on Wednesday in what will be their 11th encounter. Djokovic leads the […]<\/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-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668","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=1668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Australian Open News<\/h2>\n
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