Tennis great Jim Courier has described Novak Djokovic\u2019s decision to withdraw from the Italian Open as \u201ctroubling\u201d and \u201cworrying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic<\/a>\u00a0pulled out of the prestigious tournament in Rome, which is the third and final Masters 1000 event of the clay season, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n It ends a run of 18 consecutive appearances at the Italian Open for Djokovic, who is a six-time champion. The last time the Serbian did not feature in the main draw of the tournament was 2006, when he lost in the qualifying draw as an 18-year-old.<\/p>\n The 37-year-old\u2019s surprise decision comes after he lost 6-3, 6-4 to Matteo Arnaldi in his first match at the Madrid Open last week.<\/p>\n It was a third consecutive straight-set loss for Djokovic, who was beaten by Alejandro Tabilo in his opening match at the Monte Carlo Masters and Jakub Mensik in the Miami Open final.<\/p>\n The 24-time Grand Slam winner will, therefore, enter the French Open with a 0-2 record on clay this year \u2014 unless he adds an event to his schedule in between Rome and the Paris major.<\/p>\n On Tennis Channel,\u00a0Courier struggled to make sense of Djokovic\u2019s decision and found the timing of the announcement \u201cvery strange.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHas he listed a reason why? That\u2019s troubling, that\u2019s worrying for me as a Novak fan,\u201d said the four-time major champion.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic takes a huge Roland Garros gamble with major announcement<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Has Novak Djokovic\u2019s former biggest strength become his key weakness?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s worrying because that\u2019s the best place to get ready for Roland Garros, the conditions are very similar, it\u2019s back at sea level.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re gonna play one between Madrid and Rome, Rome would be the one you\u2019d want to play to get ready for Roland Garros.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I don\u2019t know what to make of it, but I don\u2019t like the way it feels in the gut.<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely concerned, it\u2019s a very strange thing to announce to pull out now, well in advance of it. And we\u2019ll see what it all means when we get to Roland Garros.\u201d<\/p>\n Tracy Austin, a former world No 1 and two-time US Open champion, also weighed in.<\/p>\n \u201cHe (Djokovic) has lost his last three matches in a row, all in straight sets,\u201d said the American. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t won a clay-court match this year, early in Monte Carlo, early here [in Madrid] as well.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he just looked a little out of balance, his footwork wasn\u2019t great in his loss the other day against Arnaldi, and he even said, \u2018My reality right now is trying to win a match or two.\u2019 And that\u2019s really tough for a guy who\u2019s won 24 majors to be talking like that.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0<\/strong>Novak Djokovic told why it is \u2018getting harder and harder every week\u2019 despite being the GOAT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The post Novak Djokovic\u2019s Rome decision labelled \u2018troubling\u2019 and \u2018very strange\u2019 as two tennis icons react<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennis great Jim Courier has described Novak Djokovic\u2019s decision to withdraw from the Italian Open as \u201ctroubling\u201d and \u201cworrying.\u201d Djokovic\u00a0pulled out of the prestigious tournament in Rome, which is the third and final Masters 1000 event of the clay season, on Tuesday. It ends a run of 18 consecutive appearances at the Italian Open for […]<\/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-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","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=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Novak Djokovic News<\/h2>\n