Novak Djokovic won his 10th career Australian Open in straight sets on Sunday, but it turns out it was one of the more difficult victories of his career.
The 22-time Grand Slam champion beat Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) in the men’s singles final while dealing with a 3-centimeter — or a little more than an inch — tear in his left hamstring.
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“He gets a bad rap, but at the end of the day, I don’t think anyone can question his athleticism,” Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley told SEN Sportsday on Wednesday. “This guy, I did see, he had a 3-centimeter tear in his hammy.”
Djokovic, 35, experienced the tear before the tournament at a tune-up event in Adelaide, which he won as well over American Sebastian Korda.
Djokovic has long dominated the Australian Open, where he was won 28 straight matches. He also won the tournament three straight years from 2019 through 2021 before missing last year’s tournament because of his refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Despite the slight tear in his hamstring, Djokovic’s latest triumph Down Under tied him with Rafael Nadal for the most Grand Slam titles in men’s tennis history and moved him to No. 1 in the world.
“The doctors are … going to tell you the truth,” Tiley said. “I think there was a lot of speculation of whether it was true or not. It’s hard to believe that someone can do what they do with those types of injuries. But he’s remarkable.”
For cautionary reasons, Djokovic took painkiller pills and wore a bandage on his left thigh, which was monitored by trainers throughout the first week in Melbourne.
“Let me put it like this: I don’t say 100 percent, but 97 percent of the players, on Saturday when you get results of the MRI, you go straight to the referee’s office and pull out of the tournament,” Djokovic’s coach, Goran Ivanisevic, said after the final. “But not him. … His brain is working different.”
