Tennis icon Jimmy Connors has backed Novak Djokovic\u2019s withdrawal from the Canadian Open and revealed what he feels the Serb must do before the US Open.<\/p>\n
Djokovic<\/a> was one of 18 players to pull out before the Masters 1000 event in Toronto, with fellow top six stars Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Jack Draper also withdrawing<\/a>.<\/p>\n The great Serbian has not played since his Wimbledon semi-final loss Sinner, during which he was visibly hampered by an injury.<\/p>\n The\u00a038-year-old is expected to return to action at the Cincinnati Masters, which will begin on August 7. Djokovic will then try again to become the oldest Grand Slam singles champion in history\u00a0at the US Open<\/a> as he chases a record-extending 25th major.<\/p>\n During an episode of his Advantage Connors podcast with his son Brett, Connors was asked if the high number of withdrawals on Canada were a result of players protecting their bodies.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, especially if you look at a guy\u00a0like Djokovic, you know, he\u2019s gotta monitor his time and the effort that he puts in, because he is the older player on the circuit now,\u201d said the eight-time Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if he wants to bring his game up and rise to the top when it supposedly is the most meaningful, which would be the US Open, he\u2019s gotta monitor what\u2019s best, but also be able to play some matches too going into the tournament, so you don\u2019t just go in flat.<\/p>\n \u201cBut a lot of the other guys go into the 12 day events, that is a lot of tennis. The only good thing is they\u2019re not three out of five set matches, you know, they\u2019re two out of three.<\/p>\n What is Novak Djokovic\u2019s best chance left to win a 25th Grand Slam? Mansour Bahrami weighs in<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The 10 best ATP Tour players of the 21st Century \u2013 ranked!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI can see where a lot of the top players that are playing every week and getting to the semis and finals every week \u2014 that\u2019s telling on you mentally and physically.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, every match should be important, but there\u2019s some results that are your legacy \u2014 and that\u2019s Wimbledon and the US Open in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n The former world No 1 also shed light on his approach to scheduling between Wimbledon and the US Open during his own career.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, after Wimbledon, I would take a week off. I\u2019d have to go home and get my clothes clean and get ready to play,\u201d Connors recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cBut back then, it was a different time. I was young and there was not so much money in the game, so I was trying to make a living too, so I would go and play. But I was able to monitor my schedule to the point where I never felt like I was burnt out.<\/p>\n \u201cI would come back and take a week off [after Wimbledon] and then I would go and play Washington, or Cincinnati, or Indianapolis, or whatever, and then I\u2019d take a week off. Or I\u2019d play two tournaments and take a week off.<\/p>\n \u201cI was striving for the US Open, but that was my schedule. Once Wimbledon was over, I was training for Wimbledon the next year. Once US Open was over, I was training for the US Open the next year. Everything else just fit in between.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0Nicolas Massu reveals which of Djokovic, Nadal & Federer that Sinner and Alcaraz are more similar to<\/a> The post Jimmy Connors tells Novak Djokovic how to find his top level for the US Open<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennis icon Jimmy Connors has backed Novak Djokovic\u2019s withdrawal from the Canadian Open and revealed what he feels the Serb must do before the US Open. Djokovic was one of 18 players to pull out before the Masters 1000 event in Toronto, with fellow top six stars Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Jack Draper also […]<\/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-802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","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=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Novak Djokovic News<\/h2>\n
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