MADRID, 8 May: Novak Djokovic is optimistic about his game going into the French Open despite going another week without a title.
\nThe top-ranked Djokovic is yet to win a trophy this season while trying to regain his best form after not being allowed to play in the Australian Open because he was not vaccinated for COVID-19.
\nDjokovic lost to young sensation Carlos Alcaraz in three sets in the semifinals of the Madrid Open on Saturday, when he was trying to make it to his second consecutive final after losing to Andrey Rublev in Serbia last month.
\nDespite the loss, Djokovic said he leaves Madrid feeling good about his preparations for the upcoming French Open, where he will defend his title.
\n\u201cI definitely played very good tennis, I mean, the best that I have played this year,\u201d Djokovic said. \u201cProbably when the disappointment of losing this match passes, I will have a lot of positives to take away from this week.\u201d
\nDjokovic said he felt he could have come away with the victory against the 19-year-old Alcaraz \u2014 one the hottest players on tour this season \u2014 if he had been \u201cable to capitalize when it mattered\u201d during the match of more than 3 1\/2 hours at the \u201cCaja M\u00e1gica\u201d center court.
\n\u201cI had a lot of chances,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a fantastic match. Great battle.\u201d
\nThe Madrid Open was only his fourth tournament of the year, and third on clay. He lost to 29th-ranked Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in his first match in Monte Carlo in his only other Masters 1000 appearance so far.
\nDjokovic did not play in Indian Wells and Miami. He will carry an 8-4 record on the season into Rome this week, with one of those victories coming after Andy Murray withdrew from their third-round match in Madrid because of a stomach illness.
\nDjokovic had opened his campaign in the Spanish capital with a two-set win over Gael Monfils. He comfortably defeated Hubert Hurkacz in two sets in the quarterfinals.
\nThe 34-year-old Djokovic said after the match against Monfils it was \u201chis best performance of the year\u201d considering he hadn\u2019t played well and lacked rhythm in the few tournaments he had played.
\nDjokovic had reached the quarterfinals in the only other tournament he played this year, losing to 72nd-ranked Jiri Vesely in Dubai in February.
\nThe goal now is preparing to do well in Roland Garros, where he will try to win his third French Open.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s on the good path, definitely,\u201d he said. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MADRID, 8 May: Novak Djokovic is optimistic about his game going into the French Open despite going another week without a title. The top-ranked Djokovic is yet to win a trophy this season while trying to regain his best form after not being allowed to play in the Australian Open because he was not vaccinated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-190533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}