"It is a gift to play doubles with Novak Djokovic" - Carlos Gomez-Herrera
Novak Djokovic raised eyebrows when he opted to take a wildcard into the doubles event in Mallorca this week ahead of his Wimbledon title defense.
The Serb is partnering long-time friend Carlos Gomez-Herrera, whom he first met in Spain almost a decade ago.
Ahead of their first-round encounter against Bosnia's Tomislav Brkic and Serbia's Nikola Cacic, Gomez-Herrera opened up on what it felt like to get the call from the World No. 1.
"I had already planned to come to the tournament to see if I would enter the previous one. Novak called me from Paris to ask me if I wanted to play with him," Gomez-Herrera told MARCA. "For me it is a gift to play with Djokovic because you do not play every day with someone like him."
The pair competed in doubles together at the ATP 500 event in Dubai in 2014. Djokovic and Gomez-Herrera ended up losing their first match to Tomasz Bednarek and Lukas Dlouhy in a third-set tiebreaker.
Gomez-Herrera said he remembered that match very well.
"I remember we lost in the super tie break," the Spaniard reminisced.
"What stands out the most about Novak Djokovic is how transparent he is" - Carlos Gomez-Herrera
During the interview, Gomez-Herrera recalled his first training session with Novak Djokovic way back in 2010. The Spaniard said the one quality that stood out in the 19-time Grand Slam champion was his transparency.
"I think the first time I trained with him was in 2010. When I met him in Madrid I didn't even know who he was," the 31-year-old said. "What would stand out the most about Nole is how transparent he is: what you see is what he is."
Gomez-Herrera was also supportive of Novak Djokovic's move to form the Professional Tennis Players' Association (PTPA), a breakaway union independent of the ATP designed to protect the interests and rights of the players on tour.
Djokovic faced plenty of opposition at the time, including from long-time rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who said the move could create divisions in tennis.
But Gomez-Herrera pointed out that the Serb only had the players' best interests in mind.
"He is doing something that nobody had done, which is to give visibility to a group of players who do not have it," Gomez-Herrera added.