BY FAWAD HUSSAIN
DOHA: World number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia feels ready to defend his top billing at this week’s Qatar ExxonMobil Open, the season’s first event.
It is the first event for Djokovic — who became a father last October — in Qatar and also the first time that his family is traveling with him on the ATP Tour.
“I (had) never been in Doha, never played here, and heard only the nicest things. This is a tournament that has the long tradition, you know, over 20 years, that was one of the reasons I wanted to come here,” Djokovic, who withdrew from the final of an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi last week, said yesterday.
“I am feeling better. Today, I’m supposed to play doubles and see how it goes,” he told a press conference at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex ahead of his doubles match.
The challenge from his arch-rivals — Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal — together with emergence of young players have forced the Serb to start the season from the first week — only the third time in his career.
“You cannot count out Rafa, neither Roger, they are great champions and they are still my biggest rivals and there is no question about it,” he said.
“Rafa didn’t play many matches in last four, five months. He had similar issues with injuries few years back, and then he came back in 2013 and played maybe the year of his life,” Djokovic said.
“Roger also didn’t experience the season up to his standards back in 2013, but then again this year we were fighting up to the last couple of matches in London for number one spot,” he said before counting other threats.
“Andy (Murray) is right up there, and then you have (Tomas) Berdych, (David) Ferrer, these guys that have been very consistent and established top-10 players.
“Then you have some new faces coming up that we, you know, have seen in the last season that can challenge and that can win against the best players in the biggest tournaments, like Cilic, Wawrinka, Nishikori, Raonic, and Dimitrov, to name a few.
“It’s normal to expect that there is a new wave of tennis players who are able to contend for the top spots of the world, who are able to compete for the major titles. This time was coming sooner or later and we all knew that,” said the 27-year old.
Despite all the challenges, Djokovic is turning out to be a good father and he was affirmative to a query ‘whether he changes diapers?’
“I am giving lots of love and attention to my family, to my baby. Of course I’m changing diapers. Are you kidding me? Of course,” he laughed.
THE PENINSULA
