Paul Annacone, a former coach of Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, has offered his perspective on Novak Djokovic after the Serbian\u2019s surprise early Monte Carlo exit.<\/p>\n
Djokovic<\/a>\u00a0struggled badly in a 3-6, 4-6 loss against 32nd-ranked Alejandro Tabilo in the second round of the\u00a02025 Monte Carlo Masters.<\/p>\n It was the tennis great\u2019s third defeat in his opening match at a tournament in 2025 after losses to Matteo Berrettini in Doha and Botic van de Zandschulp in Indian Wells.<\/p>\n The legendary Serb, who was a runner-up at the Miami Open at the end of March, now holds a 12-6 record this season.<\/p>\n Djokovic\u2019s second appearance of the clay season will come at the Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid, which will begin on April 22.<\/p>\n Annacone, who reached a career-high ranking of world No 12 in his playing days, explained why he was not concerned by Djokovic\u2019s Monte Carlo defeat.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, I think the hardest thing is, when you win as much as these all time greats win, you tend to only make news when you lose,\u201d the American told Tennis Channel.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Novak now, because he\u2019s not playing that much, he is losing what seems to be an inordinate amount of times.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic\u2019s 5 worst Monte Carlo Masters defeats: ft world No 32 Alejandro Tabilo<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Novak Djokovic\u2019s early Monte Carlo Masters exit \u2018should be viewed as normal\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBut guess what, the most important thing for players at this stage, in this level, is to periodise, \u2018How am I gonna get ready for Roland Garros? How am I gonna get ready for Wimbledon?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd guess what, he\u2019s gonna have some of these losses, but because he knows how good he is, he\u2019s not going to panic, his confidence isn\u2019t going to crash, it\u2019s about staying healthy and trying to peak at the right moment.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019ve always believed that you never really want to bet against greats, particularly all time greats in the biggest moments.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not gonna probably win three and four majors over a couple year span all the time now, but he\u2019s not going to be in every single major. But when the guy wants to play, I\u2019m not betting against him in a big tournament yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Andy Roddick pointed out that the conditions in Monte Carlo made life difficult for Djokovic.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what else is kryptonite for someone who\u2019s 38? Cold, slow and balls that are unresponsive,\u201d the former world No 1 explained.<\/p>\n \u201cWe keep referencing him winning on clay in the Olympics last year \u2014 it was 90 degrees during parts of the Olympics last year. The ball was jumping, he got a little help. He got no help today in these conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0Novak Djokovic asked about injury scare and eye problem after Monte Carlo Masters shock<\/a> The post Roger Federer\u2019s ex-coach \u2018not betting against\u2019 Novak Djokovic after Monte Carlo exit<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul Annacone, a former coach of Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, has offered his perspective on Novak Djokovic after the Serbian\u2019s surprise early Monte Carlo exit. Djokovic\u00a0struggled badly in a 3-6, 4-6 loss against 32nd-ranked Alejandro Tabilo in the second round of the\u00a02025 Monte Carlo Masters. It was the tennis great\u2019s third defeat in his […]<\/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-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","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=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Novak Djokovic News<\/h2>\n
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