Novak Djokovic called on the physiotherapist against Carreno Busta.
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Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP
Bluff or real pain?
This is the question that (does not) ask the Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta after his elimination on Wednesday evening in the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros against Novak Djokovic.
The world number 18 indeed accuses his opponent of the evening of having used alleged physical problems to remake the cherry mentally by taking advantage of the downtime due to the arrival of the doctor, at a time when he seemed precisely in the hard on the short (Carreno Busta even won the first set 6-4).
“I knew it could happen because every time he's in trouble, he calls it [physiotherapist].
And if he did, that meant he was in the rough, that he wasn't comfortable and that I managed to play at a high level.
That's why he was in doubt.
He's been doing this for a long time.
Every time the match gets complicated for him, he asks for a medical time out, railed the Spaniard at a press conference.
I don't know if he has chronic shoulder pain or if it's mental, but every time he's in the rough it comes back.
I knew it would happen at the US Open, that it would happen here and that it will continue.
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Djoko doesn't say too much
For his part, Djokovic did not wish to elaborate more on the nature of his pain, preferring to remain evasive.
“I had neck and shoulder problems.
That's all I'll say.
I don't want to go into details because I'm still in the tournament.
I'm fine.
As I said, as the game progressed my body warmed up and the pain subsided.
It allowed me to play better and better, ”he said.
What is certain is that the world number 1 indeed entered the court with a huge patch in his neck and massaged himself the inside of his left elbow several times before bringing in the physiotherapist by twice when changing sides to have your left bicep massaged.
Djokovic had withdrawn for the doubles tournament of Cincinnati in August (relocated in the bubble of the US Open) because of neck pain.
At the 2019 US Open, he retired in the 8th due to pain in his left shoulder.
For a while, the operation was finally not performed.
And in 2018, he had surgery on his right elbow after six months of hiatus and an attempt to return to the Australian Open.
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