"Handled this as well as he could have" - Andy Roddick praises Novak Djokovic's calm reaction to drunk fan's provocation at Australian Open
2003 US Open champion Andy Roddick recently heaped praise on former World No. 1 Novak Djokovic's reaction to a drunk fan's provocation during his second-round clash at the 2023 Australian Open.
To reach the third round of the Australian Open and continue his pursuit of a 10th Australian Open Major title, Djokovic needed to dig deep against French qualifier Enzo Couacaud. Nevertheless, he prevailed 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-0.
During the match, the Serb demanded that a loudmouth tennis fan be ejected from the Rod Laver Arena after receiving constant heckles. He took matters into his own hands, telling the umpire that the spectator was attempting to get inside his head during the tie-break.
"The guy's drunk out of his mind, from the first point he's been provoking me. He's not here to watch tennis. He just wants to get in my head," he said.
In light of this, Andy Roddick took to Twitter to laud Djokovic, stating that the Serb handled the situation very calmly.
"Novak handled this as well as he could have. Was clear about explaining this issue, and calm when asking how ref was gonna help w a solution," Roddick wrote.
Novak handled this as well as he could have. Was clear about explaining this issue, and calm when asking how ref was gonna help w a solution twitter.com/eurosport/statโฆ
"This is how I'm going to look like now in the media, like a bad guy" - Novak Djokovic on demanding the drunk fan be removed
In the post-match press conference, Novak Djokovic stated that the drunk fan was muttering disrespectful things at him from the beginning, which he tolerated patiently for nearly an hour and a half before finally approaching the chair umpire.
"From the very beginning, guys that were under the influence of alcohol, it was obvious, and I was grabbing my towel very close to them, particularly one guy, you heard his voice various times tonight, was insulting me and provoking me and saying things that were not respectful at all," he said.
"So I tolerated for over one and a half hours, almost two hours. I was giving signs to the chair umpire, looking at the chair umpire looking at the guy," he added.
The 21-time Grand Slam champion, however, hoped that the chair umpire would have treated the situation more seriously because the whole thing would make him look like the "bad guy" who kicked out a fan.
"I think the chair umpire, supervisor, whoever is responsible for handling the crowd, should have done a bit more and anticipated me coming out to the chair umpire and looking like a bad guy because this is how I'm going to look like now in the media, in the public, because I'm the guy that kicked out some other guy," Djokovic said.